How can one be sure he is saved? I mean there are baptism conversion, faith, and love for God. The latter seems to waver quite often in my life. God's been great to me and always has since the day I was born. Sometimes I feel that my love has grown cold and I'm going through the motions, just trying to do the next "right thing". Am I supposed to be extremely grateful all the time? If I am, I'm in big trouble. I want to be, but I am moody and have a hard time being consistently on fire for him. Any insight would be great. -- Matthew Lovacheff
God is looking for faithfulness, not perfection. We all sin (1 John 1:6-2:1), but we are all called to leave a lifestyle of sin (1 John 5:18, 2:6). The passage for you is 1 John 5:13:
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."
Can we know? Absolutely! Do we all waver? Absolutely! We waver "in many ways," if we are honest (James 3:2).
As for your moods, I believe the longer you are a follower of Christ, the more they can and should come under subjection to him. I would not expect a Christian of three years to have the same maturity as a Christian of thirty years. Leave room for growth; allow the Spirit to work in you. For more on this, you might want to read my book The Spirit, or hear Andy Fleming's audio series The Holy Spirit: From Genesis to Pentecost.
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