Greg Gilbert - Assured: Discover Grace, Let Go of Guilt, and Rest in Your Salvation

P astoral ministry has more than its fair share of both joy and heartbreak. On the one hand, there are moments and events that make you want to sing in praise to Godbabies being born, wedding vows being exchanged, a dear brother or sister seeing Gods hand move in a surprising way and their faith being strengthened because of it. Those are the beautiful moments, the ones that make pastoral ministry all worth it. But on the other hand, there are moments of deep sadness that make your heart cry out to God in an entirely different waysitting with a couple who have just suffered their fourth miscarriage in three years, counseling someone through a cancer diagnosis or a job loss or the death of a loved one, reading the Bible quietly for the last time to a dear saint whos finally going home.

However, so far in my years of being a pastor, I havent experienced anything more heartbreaking than watching the collapse of a professing Christians faith. As I think about it, though, maybe collapse isnt quite the right word, because its seldom dramatic or fast. Youve probably seen internet videos of buildings undergoing a controlled demolition; its quick and clean and streamlined and, in its own way, neat. The loss of faith isnt like that at all. If youve ever seen time-lapse video of an old tree slowly breaking down and decomposing, then you have a little better picture. When faith gives way to unbelief, theres no controlled explosion or neat collapse but rather just a slow, sometimes even imperceptible, dwindling until one day you look up and realize theres simply nothing left. Everything has been consumed.

Years ago, I watched that dwindling of faith happen in the life of a young man Ill call Trent. We couldnt have known it at the time, but he would turn out to be a classic example of the seed sown in the rocky soil from Jesuss parable of the sowerspringing up in an explosion of apparent life but then quickly getting scorched by the sun and then withering. When Trent showed up at church, he was an excited and eager new Christian, and he looked like he was bound to grow into a spiritual warrior. He was theologically sharp, eager to spend time with other Christians, and, above all, a voracious reader. He read everything we as his pastors put in front of himthe Bible, books on theology and ecclesiology, devotional materials, commentaries, everything . Eventually, he met a wonderful young Christian woman in the church, and they married after a dating relationship that seemed to be a model of faithfulness and responsibility. Everything about Trents spiritual life looked strong and true.

But thats when the trouble started. I dont remember exactly when the rot set in; even after all our conversations, I dont think Trent himself ever pinpointed it exactly. But our best guess is that Trent began to read a particular book (a good book, not a bad or heretical one) about what Christian joy ought to look likehow Christians should rejoice in their suffering, love Jesus, and find their joy in Gods divine goodnessand he began to compare his own heart and mind and emotions to what he was reading. Of course, thats not necessarily a bad thing to do. In fact, it could actually be a good thing for a Christian to do and could very well result in a healthy encouragement to that Christian to loosen their hearts grasp on the pleasures of this world and cling more tightly to Christ. For Trent, though, the effect of comparing himself to the description in that book was dramatically different. Instead of being challenged to press on in faithfulness, Trent was terrified. Why? Because he didnt see in his own life the kind of joy that he read about in that book, and so he began to question whether he was really a Christian at all.

From there, the corrosion deepened rapidly. Over the next few months, Trent fell into a hopeless vortex of introspection and self-judgment. No matter how often or how fervently we exhorted him to look to Christ and find peace in the gospel, Trent lost his footing. In the end, he simply declared that he couldnt possibly be a Christian because he didnt have the joy or the passionate love for Jesus that a Christian ought to have, and he left the church and ultimately the faith.

Dont get me wrong. Of course not every Christians wrestling with assurance is the same as Trents, and thank God not every Christians struggle ends so catastrophically either. But Im also quite sure that Trents struggle with the question Am I a Christian, really ? is one that dogs many Christians, if not every Christian, at one point or another in their lives. I say that not just as a truism or a throwaway hunch but as the considered fruit of dozens of conversations Ive had across coffee shop tables about this very issue. Im sure the coffee joints in Louisville dont know it, but theyve made a ton of money from me talking with people over the years about assurance of salvation!