discipleship | 1.5 page studies
Assurance of Salvation

After you've done your usual opening activities, begin your formal study time by asking these questions:

• What do you feel affects our relationship with God? (The topic is wide open, people can share whatever is on their mind). Say: "Our relationship with God can be affected by many things, our feelings, our sin, our past and many circumstances."

(This next question is a very emotional issue with strong feelings positive and negative. Be prepared with compassion, keeping a serious tone, be a good listener). Ask:

• What was your relationship with you father like? (The ultimate impact of this answer helps you to see what their feeling towards their heavenly father might be. Also, why they might struggle with God and believing Him for the best).

Read these passages about God and His perspective towards us out loud together:

Romans 8:31-39

31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ask:

• From this passage in Romans, how much has God sacrificed for us? (see verse 32).
• From verses 35-39, what do you feel is left out that could still separate us from the love of God? (Answer: nothing. Verse 39 ".nor anything else in all creation.").

Read: Hebrews 13:5-6

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

Ask: If we truly make a decision to place our trust in Christ, what does it mean in verse 5 that he will never leave us or forsake us?

Say: God will never leave us or forsake us. In the original Greek this verse is written saying the same thing twice. A repeat for emphasis, "I will never leave you, nor will I leave you or forsake you". Christ will never leave us once we invite Him in. We can have the assurance that our Heavenly Father will not leave us.

(Some people may have been so hurt from their past that they're not ready to fully accept this and may not agree with you. That's O.K. simply encourage them that you feel that God will be with them no matter what, if they sincerely invited Christ into their life).

Read: John 10:27-30

27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

30 I and the Father are one."

Ask: How securely does our Heavenly Father want to hang onto us as His children? (Very securely)

Say: John uses a double negative to make an emphatic point, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand." or "They shall not, repeat, shall not ever perish in the slightest."

Apply: We do not need to work for our salvation or work to keep it. It is a free gift by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). Transition

Say: "Next time let's begin to answer the question of why we still struggle with sin even though God is always with us."

A more in-depth article on the issue of eternal security of the believer