Assurance of Salvation (4)

As for the assurance of salvation, we must do our part too, though it begins with God. He loves us first and embraces us first; and we must love in return and embrace in return. Lord, you must begin. The covenant consists of two sides. Yet, desire God, by his grace, to enable us to do our side, for he does both. And desire him, according to his promise, to teach us to love him, and ‘to write his law in our hearts' (Jer. 31:33). Lord, you have made a covenant with us; we cannot keep it without you. And this God will do. Let us labour to get into Christ, for it is in him that God is our Father. To grow up in Christ, to grow more and more in faith and in all grace. A gracious Christian is never lacking arguments of the assurance of salvation. It is the dead-hearted Christian, the careless Christian. Labour daily to choose God to be your God. If we say, we are God's, let us make choice of him at the same time. There is renunciation of all others. I have served other gods, the world, the flesh, and the favour of man, but they will be my god no more. If we be tempted to any sin, say; ‘Why, I am not mine own, I am God's. I have chosen him to be my God; I have renounced all other; I have offered myself to him; therefore, what have I to do with sin, with this temptation? It is contrary to the state I am advanced to, and contrary to my relation. God is my Father and my God, and therefore I must be his; and what have I to do with sin?' Further, what has pride to do with a heart given to God? What has lust and filthiness? What has injustice, or anything else that is sinful to do in a heart that has dedicated and consecrated itself to God. Therefore, let us make use of these and like things to do our part in the assurance of salvation.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
A Heavenly Conference, pp. 156-60
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