Assurance can be a struggle for believers. Certain situations, temperaments, and inclinations will cause some of us to wrestle with it more than others. Through the pendulum swings of life, we feel our spirits wax and wane within us. But Christians are a people who live not in the ebb and flow of our circumstances, but in the concreteness of our future glory and liberation.
But how? How do we anchor ourselves to this objective activity of the Holy Spirit? What does the Bible say about the certainty of our salvation amid hard times? Why did God pick suffering as the pathway to Christlikeness? How should we interpret our experience of disappointment as Christians? How can we rest assured we stand on a certain faith and not a failing one? To consider these questions and more, TGC’s Mark Mellinger sat down with Ligon Duncan, chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary.
In this nine-minute video, Duncan shows how Paul deals with this issue in Romans 8:16–25 and how we can live in the hope we have in Christ, even in hard times. Though we may feel tossed around in our hearts, the work of the Spirit inside us never wavers. Even when we can’t feel it, we can bank on his steady hand.
