{"id":242,"date":"2008-12-11T09:18:58","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T14:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.wordpress.com\/?p=242"},"modified":"2008-12-11T09:18:58","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T14:18:58","slug":"doubt-less-1-john-319-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/doubt-less-1-john-319-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubt-Less – 1 John 3:19-24"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever had serious doubts about your salvation?\u00a0 I think we all have from time-to-time.\u00a0 Sometimes they’re well founded because it is possible to spend an entire lifetime going to church, doing all the religious ritual stuff, “doing good,” never having entered into a saving knowledge of Jesus (beyond head knowledge to the heart level, where Jesus–not the Jesus stuff<\/em>–has become the center of your life).<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, even those who have trusted Jesus begin to have doubts…serious doubts…about the condition of our souls.\u00a0 This should certainly give us pause, understanding that these are often times when we have drifted away from the relationship with God we have had, being blocked from him by sin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our conscience plays a vital role in remedying this as we listen when conviction comes, realizing what has happened, and moving back to Him through confession.<\/p>\n

“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is really the key to maintaining a healthy and right relationship with God:\u00a0 keeping His commandments, namely, loving Him with all our hearts and loving each other.\u00a0 Love is the commandment<\/em>.\u00a0 This can take a thousand different forms, but that is the bedrock foundation upon which our faith is founded, having been loved to the extreme by Jesus Christ who makes this whole thing possible.<\/p>\n

Some of the expressions come through sacrificing our needs and wants for that of others.\u00a0 Giving sacrificially to those who do not have enough to sustain them (which is not a political issue–liberal, progressive, conservative or otherwise–so let’s stop making it one), or simply being there for a friend who is hurting.<\/p>\n

So many ways are there of loving and yet I find myself often “condemned” in my soul, as John says, because I’ve not done any<\/em> of them.\u00a0 As we’ve said before, real faith is that of actions, not merely lofty rhetoric.\u00a0 Keeping the commandment keeps the doubt at bay and, then, if those times when Satan is the one convicting, John reminds us<\/a> that “God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”<\/p>\n

It’s easy to talk big…but we need to stop long enough to listen to what are our hearts telling us.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever had serious doubts about your salvation?\u00a0 I think we all have from time-to-time.\u00a0 Sometimes they’re well founded because it is possible to spend an entire lifetime going to church, doing all the religious ritual stuff, “doing good,” never having entered into a saving knowledge of Jesus (beyond head knowledge to the heart…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[20],"tags":[684,137,138,147,170,222,693,413],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3jKZO-3U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":256,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/when-love-isnt-love-1-john-47-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":0},"title":"When Love Isn’t Love – 1 John 4:7-12","date":"December 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"You know what I get tired of?\u00a0 Religious people who go to church and do all the stuff they're supposed to, but give them half a chance and they rail on somebody.\u00a0 I get tired of people who talk about the love of God, but never seem to show it;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":219,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/the-door-1-john-222-25\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":1},"title":"The Door – 1 John 2:22-25","date":"December 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In John 14:6, John reported Jesus as having said, \"I am the way, the truth, and the life.\u00a0 No one comes to the Father except by me.\"\u00a0 With those words, there was no room left for any other way to salvation.\u00a0 Now, we can either believe it or not...that option\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":198,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/psi-words-in-the-end-are-still-just-words-1-john-15-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":2},"title":"PSI – Words, in the End, Are Still Just Words – 1 John 1:5-10","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It is a popular notion, as Americans, to call ourselves Christians.\u00a0 Ask just about anybody, regardless of lifestyle, beliefs or politics, and they will tell you they are Christian.\u00a0 This just points to the fact that the word, \"Christian,\" has become meaningless.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, many would hold\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian Living"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/a-new-kind-of-test-1-john-41-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":3},"title":"A New Kind of Test – 1 John 4:1-5","date":"December 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Up to now, the tests in 1 John have been for us.\u00a0 We have been given tests to demonstrate whether or not Christ really lives in us and if we are really following after Him.\u00a0 Now, the tables are turned. Testing the spirits is a vital operation that we must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":283,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/the-testimony-of-god-1-john-56-10\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":4},"title":"The Testimony of God – 1 John 5:6-10","date":"December 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It has always been said that actions speak louder than words.\u00a0 It's one thing to make a claim, it's another to back it up.\u00a0 In 1 John 5:6-10, the apostle tells us that Jesus did both.\u00a0 He not only claimed to be the Son of God and savior to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/tough-love-1-john-311-15\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":5},"title":"Tough Love – 1 John 3:11-15","date":"December 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Man, John just pulls no punches, does he?\u00a0 Listen to some of this: \"Whoever does not love abides in death.\" \"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.\"\u00a0 Tough stuff, but I read it very appreciatively. Sometimes we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "PSI (Personal Spiritual Insight)"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}