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 Do you ever feel uncertain of your salvation?  Have you ever wondered, is it really true?  Am I really a child of God?  I suspect that most believers, maybe all, somewhere along the line has had the nagging feeling of lack of assurance.  What do we say to these things?  Better yet, what does the Bible say to us concerning our security of salvation and what role does the Holy Spirit play in this?  The first thing we should understand is that God absolutely wants his children to know they are safe and secure in his arms.  The Bible provides two sources of assurance to the believer, the Gospel and the Spirit.  Assurance of salvation is available to every believer through these two works of God.  It is helpful to think of them as two sides of the same coin.  A coin that provides both objective and subjective assurance.  Here’s what I mean.  The Gospel provides objective assurance.  This is because the Gospel is something that happened to you.  It is something that God has done in Jesus Christ in space and time history.  Jesus lived a perfect life on your behalf.  He did what Adam failed to do and every human being since Adam, including you and me, has failed to do.  That is to live life in full and complete obedience, trust and fidelity to God.  Outside of Jesus every human has sought to live life independent of God.  Jesus however, fully obeyed at every moment of his life.  Because of his perfect humanity he was then able to be a perfect and adequate substitute for us.  He is human like us but he is also God himself – the God-man.  As a result, his sacrifice is sufficient to pay for our sin and cleanse us from all our acts that lead to death.  That’s Gospel.  That’s good news and that is something you cannot add to or take from.  It is something we either trust in or don’t, receive or reject.  It is something outside of us that comes to us.  If we trust in this Gospel, we have objective assurance.  We are resting in something outside of ourselves.  Praise His Name!   On the other side of the coin is subjective assurance.  What does this mean?  It means that God wants us to feel and sense the reality of Christ crucified for us.  God wants us to know his love and forgiveness not only on the pages of scripture but in our hearts.  For this to happen he gives us the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the believer to make the reality of Jesus the Savior real and felt in our daily living.  In Ephesians 1:13-14 we are told that the Holy Spirit does two things in the believer: he seals and he’s the guarantee.  What does it mean to be sealed by the Holy Spirit?  To answer that it is helpful to think of branding.  A cattle rancher will brand his cattle with a seal of ownership.  It is a way of distinguishing what belongs to him.  In the same way God seals those who belong to him by giving them His promised Spirit.  It is his way of marking those who are his.  When we put our trust in Jesus as God’s Son who came and paid the debt for our sin God not only forgives the sin but seals the believer by giving that person His life-giving Spirit.  The second thing then that happens is that the Spirit is also the guarantee for the believer of what is to come.  The Spirit not only seals us but He is our guarantee that we belong to God and Jesus’ future is our future.  The Spirit’s role in our lives is to make these truths pulsate in our hearts.  Make them real and alive and our hearts longing.  This is subjective assurance.  I know I am saved first because of Jesus’ work on my behalf and second because the Spirit makes that work alive and real to my heart.  He is my seal and guarantee.  This has the power to make the Christian incredibly secure.  Not afraid, not wondering, not proud, not driven but filled with humble hope.  Friend, if you are in Christ Jesus, God wants you to know and experience the security of being God’s chosen and rescued child.  Are you experiencing some of this reality?  “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”  Rest your soul today in this strong word of assurance.  May he make it real to you.