March 03, 2007
Newsletter Archives

There is always mystery connected how a person can really know that he or she is saved. It is not a new problem. A preacher of a previous century told of meeting a young sailor who wanted to be sure he was in a right relationship with God. He had been troubled about this for about three years and had been seeking, and praying, and trying to feel satisfied about the guilt of his sins.
The preacher pointed out to the sailor that he had been overlooking one simple fact for those three years. It was the fact that God was satisfied with the death of Christ for his sin. When it finally dawned on the sailor that all that mattered was that God was settled about sin, his face brightened and he said, “Oh, I never thought of that before – God is satisfied.”
The preacher further explained that the sailor was trying to be better and feel different, trying to work himself up to a certain state of happiness and then feel satisfied with his own joy. Because he was always failing and never arriving at the standard he had set up, he was dissatisfied.
This is the vital point. The Savior who stood in our place was “delivered for our offences” – He had none – “and was raised again for our justification” Romans 4:25. So the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was God’s receipt for him. God was satisfied, so he could be.
And we will never be satisfied until we believe that God has found infinite satisfaction in the work of Christ on the cross for us. “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree” 1 Peter 2:24. He cried out on the cross, “It is finished!” and died John 19:30. And as the writer to the Hebrews states: “This man after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God” Hebrews 10:12. He writes further: “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” Hebrews 10:17.
Once was sufficient for God, and, accordingly, once ought to be sufficient for us.

Russ Nesbit