April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 1 Psalm 28:6-7
Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
This day is often referred to April Fool’s Day. In Poland this day takes on epic proportions. Serious activities are avoided, and every word spoken from early morning to noon are presupposed as being a lie. It is a day when many pranks are played: hoaxes are prepared and media goes along with mis-reporting. Even public institutions backdate all documents to the day before. But for me there is no better day to celebrate the absolute truth of assurance. It is not a hoax! It is not a false promise! It is an absolute in my life. My emotions want to jump for joy. I sing “Blessed Assurance Jesus is mine.”
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 2
Psalm 103:8-12 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Distance from the norm. That is what vacation is. It is a separation from the things that would weigh us down. Assurance of God is a vacation that never has to end. It is a time when you can just let go and let God be our savior. It is a time when all the cares of the world grow slowly dim in the light of His glorious grace.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 3
1 John 2:1-2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
In the hard times, in the times of life where there seems to be nothing but darkness, when sin seems to be winning every battle, we have an assurance of forgiveness and hope. When all we want to do is hide our heads under a pillow and scream, cling to the assurance that God loves you. He has created for you a provision in the middle of your night. There is a path that you can tread and a solution to your problem–and you will experience that which you believe. God never disappoints anyone who places his trust in Him.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 4
Isaiah 12:2-3 “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Transforming people one at a time is on the top of God’s to-do list. It is essential to the development of dynamic marriages, loving families, vibrant Christian communities, thriving businesses and economies. And extraordinary schools and nations. If you get the person right, you get the world right.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 5
Isaiah 25:9 “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
I am weird. I act weird. I believe weird. I have a faith that is weird. I am so weird that I believe God caused a virgin to gave birth. I am so weird that I believe a man walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, was and is God. I am so weird that I believe that the same man who was beaten, and spit upon and died on a cross was raised on the third day. I am so weird to believe that this same man now sits on the throne of the universe. I invite you join me in my weirdness!
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 6
And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” – Luke 1:18-20
“How am I to know I am saved?” “How shall I know this?” That hidden and nagging doubt of forgiveness has touched us all. We want some evidence. Some sort of brand on our arm as a seal of becoming part of the grand Holy club. The Angel Gabriel came down and told Zachariah he should have a son, the old and shriveled man wanted a further token than the angel’s word. “How shall I really know?: The answer, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Lord.” “I know all about that, but I need something more, a token, another sign. Gabriel said, “You shall have a token: you shall be dumb till your son shall be given you.” I must quit asking for more evidence and be assured of God’s word.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 7
Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Discovering and doing the will of God is the “only” way to have a consistent experience of His abundant life. I have a simple decision every morning as I shake the sleep from my eyes. That decision is how shall I life my life today. Either I will let the world affect me or I will affect the world for God. There are thousands of alternative paths to follow if the world is my choice. But to choose Jesus there is only one. Today I will seek. Today I will find. Today I will call upon Him. Today God will have mercy. Today God will be God in my life. Today God will freely pardon.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 8
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 1 Peter 1:3-4
Worry: Painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind over an impending or anticipated ill caused by self-doubt in one’s ability to cope with that ill. Would it not be great to live a life without worry? To have peace in every situation. To have that sense of accomplishment after a victory before the battle. To know the calm in the middle of a storm. If there is a place all of us need to grow is patience in the process. In the business world it has been said, “The process a part of the product.” All the events in my life are the processes to create a product. The product is God’s will in me.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 9
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:25-28
Assurance blossoms in repeated conflict. The symptom of discouragement is losing sight of the promise of God. Stand up, repeat the words of faith. The Lord’s power and goodness is not diminished by your conflict. When we are torn apart, God still lives. When we are discouraged, God still loves. When we are in danger, God still reaches out. When evil stands in the door, God still is your protector. God is beyond appearances. Even faith is on a scale of 1 to a million and Jesus says faith as a mustard seed.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 10
Then the general answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Matthew 8:8
Assurance is state of mind obtained from a dependent faith. It is a faith that reaches out for healing for a servant. It is a faith that wraps both arms around Jesus and states “You can do it, I can’t.” Assurance of God’s care, love, power, resolve, mercy, and grace, springs forth like the General and states without doubt, “Just say the word.”
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 11
Which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. And I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. 2 Timothy 1:12
Assurance must be more than a belief in our own salvation. Or for that matter, it is not a dependance on ourselves to “Keep calm and carry on.” Assurance is in a belief in God and his abilities. It is the good news believed and depended upon and not in a belief in our own faith. Assurance is dependance upon nothing we do but what God does.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 12
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:48-50
Assurance is a blessing. Assurance is a miracle within our soul. It is God with us. In this Godly presence, in this spiritual awakening comes unexplainable and glorious hope. The world may be on a headlong path to destruction, but there is a blessed, peaceful, sweet, comforting, and dynamic assurance of God’s moving. Moving in me and moving in this world.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 13
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17
The emptiness of the cross and the tomb are twofold visions of assurance. Both proclaim God is more than an absent slum lord. I sit here and focus on the emptiness and faith springs again in my heart. The terrible sight of Roman cruelty creates in me a confidence, an assurance of my ultimate destiny. An empty tomb gives me hope and a vital assurance.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 14 Mark 10:51,52
What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
I have read every miracle in the life of Jesus. Each had a purpose specific to the situation. He fed the hungry when there was not enough food. He raised a dead person when sisters could not be consoled. He gave sight to the blind that they might see God. Every time, without exception, every miracle was a miracle of a second chance. A doing after hope was gone. Miracles are simply second chances in life. Second chances when all hope is lost. When at the end of your rope, you need not just hold on, but you must expect a second chance to thrive.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 15
Psalms 9:1
I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
Writing does not come easily for anyone. I write because I need to share God’s blessings and thoughts. Each day it has become easier to sit and write. It was a commitment to be done and now it has become a blessing. Every time something hard becomes easier you are assured for the next. Every time you adjust to a situation there is encouragement to keep on keeping on. Every time a kindness falls as softly as the dew; or someone you love who was ill grows better; every time a blessing comes, not with trumpet and fanfare, but silently as night, there is an assurance of God’s care.
April is ASSURANCE Month Day 16
Mark 2:14
As he walked along, He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
Why call a hated, despised tax collector to be a disciple? Why call odoriferous, gross, and rough fishermen? Why call a young man out of a tree? Why take a chance on a zealous Roman hater to join the merry men? Why select a man that was from the beginning unwilling to acknowledge Jesus? It would have made much more sense to reach out to the religious, the highly born, the Roman leadership. Jesus chose who he did just because they were the unloved and incomplete. They were the neglected and the marginalized. And to their surprise, the previously unloved found that they were now loved and loved unconditionally. To be loved when you know you are unlovely. God love me; what a blessed assurance.
April is ASSURANCE Month Day 17
“All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:37-40
A Father’s gift to a Son. My birthday is next month. Yes. I am getting older and not much wiser. I don’t really expect much from my kids for my special day. It has always been the other way around. Dad gives gifts to the children. Birthdays, Christmas, and anniversaries and others. What was the greatest gift ever given to a child? The Father entrusting the entirety of humanity to the only begotten Son. No power in heaven or earth can ever take that gift away. Rome tried to beat it out of Him to no avail. But only our own choice separates. But he still has ownership.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 17 – Romans 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Joy is a completed, accepted, and settled assurance of God. Joy comes from knowing that God is still in control. Joy comes from a quiet confidence of our forgiven past, current assurance and resignation of God being taking an active role in my life. Joy is the assurance that everything, everything, everything is going to be alright. And in that joy of assurance, I am determined to give all praise and credit to God in everything.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 18
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:22-23
When it is the darkest does the smallest light becomes most noticeable. I know life can be tough. Aches and pains, financial distress, strained relationships, and a pandemic, all seem to overshadow life. In the darkest spots where you may find yourself huddling from the cold of worldly reality; God is still there. God loves you in the middle of your darkest nights. He is the still small candle that brightens with each cloud. He will give you a path to follow. He will give you a solution to your problems. He will give you relief from your darkness. God never disappoints anyone who places trust in Him.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 19
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
Assurance can grow. It grows in the fields of life as we trust more and more. Each repeated and tried testing of God’s power reveals growth in the fields of live. It may be a little sprout here and there, but there is growth. Every time you are knocked down and you get back up, growth! Every danger overcome in trust in God, growth! Again and again as we trust in the little things there is growth. And with every sprout, every stem, every leaf, every bud, every blossom will result in fruit. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 20
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. Romans 8:1-3a*
Discouragement is that palpable thing in our lives that seems to sour all that it touches. Discouragement so easily comes to us in a whisper. “It is simply to much”. “Forgiveness of my enemies is more that I can do.” “I can’t write one more line.” That which I do, seems not to be making a difference. Discouragement comes in so many flavors. Yet there is only one solution. There is now no condemnation, no discouragement, no reduction, no ill, no sin, no sliding back for me. The Spirit gives me life. And that is good enough for now.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 21
If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? Romans 8:31b-32
The overpowering feeling of uncertainty of God strips us from our joy and our strength. Uncertainty enfeebles our faith. It makes me heartless. Uncertainty rips the very power of God from my life. Uncertainty keeps me from fighting or running. Uncertainty gives space to allow a sullen quiet nature to overcome my assurance. But when we know absolutely of the presence of God, then comes strength and bravery. I take on the whole armor of God and become invincible. Uncertainty out – Assurance in!
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 22
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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. Romans 8:35, 37-39
Paul’s assurance was about connection. There was nothing which would be a valid reason for separation. He was convinced. Never-the-less there are many Christians walking around like the walking wounded. Head held low, hoping against hope that the day ends without calamity. Living like hell is greater than heaven. Stand up, open the gates of hope and assurance. How, you may ask. It is a rudimentary decision to accept God at his word.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 23
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14
People are fond of dividing the world into two. Us and them, the rich and the poor, management and labor, the educated and the uneducated, even those who have education but have no wisdom. Most of these divisions are set to make one group more exclusive. But when the example of the narrow gate is given by Jesus it was not about exclusion. The gate, while narrow, is still open to all. No soul seeking peace and assurance is ever denied entrance.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 24
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11
The dawn breaks in our lives and with the sun comes a light that reveals a path. We start with a timid belief of God. Second, we take a greater next step of faith in God’s mercy and grace. Now with God dwelling presence we boldly make another step called trust. Then with this trust we have an assurance. Our journey has begun. The path is clear. Our hope is full.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 25
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. Ephesians 1:3, 7-8
Go ahead, take my material possessions. Reach into my soul and pull out what little emotional life I have left. Strip my world of the comfort of other believers. Steal away my mobility and my ability to minister. You can try and rip away my sweet peace and joy of God. Rip it all out and what will remain? For some there would be nothing left. But for me I will always have God. A faithful, loving God in the middle of my want.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 26
Isaiah 45:21d-22 There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.”
Often, I do not perceive any urgency in the Church. Social issues seem to outweigh the ethical mandate of the Bible. There should be a visceral and palpable feeling of NOW. Why is there no panic in the church to make the world know the only answer to every question is God. God is going to return. Is the lack of urgency on our part because we worry He will not come and judge or simply because we do not think we can make a difference?
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 27
3 For he [the Father] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 28
13 When you were dead in your sins and in . . . your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14*
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 29
God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10*
That sweet feeling of assurance may well fill our hearts for a moment with a sweet glow. For a twinkling of an eye we let that experience wash over us. There have been events of blessing in my life. They have happened in good time and in some not so good times. In these occasions I have given God all the glory. But what about the in-between times? The very experience of God’s presence is not enough to keep me all the time. I have discovered it is the assurance of faith that is the best of all. It endures whether I am blessed or not. Assurance is the benefit of faith. It is held on the level of perfection because it is bound on a promise of God who never changes.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 30
God our Savior 4 . . . wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. 1 Timothy 2:3-6a
If I have believed, confessed and live in faith, God has totally forgiven me. The sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient. I do not have to play on the defensive side in the game of the life. I must not continue to rationalize and find excuses for my choices, my rebellion, or my multitude of sins. I can call sin by its ugly name. I can live again without regret or shame. All because I know Jesus took it all away. He by his death pay the price for my forgiveness and by his resurrection fill me with assurance.
April is ASSURANCE Month, Day 31
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7
April has been a month of revelation of the importance of assurance in my life. To be well grounded in the Word of God, to accept God’s promises, to walk in the light as He is in the light. Not because of anything I have done or even deserve. I live in the assurance of God loving me. It is God dwelling in me as I realize this presence and know to whom I belong. One is salvation the other the assurance of it.