Fasting For Assurance of Salvation

# 273 Today’s Living Word comes from Mark 2:18 “The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting.” Mark 2:18

You never know what might happen as you practice the spiritual discipline of fasting. In Acts 10, we read of a Gentile named Cornelius. In Acts 10:2, we read that he was “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.”

Here was a religious man. He does all the right things, but something is missing. Has he been devout enough? Has he given enough alms? Has he prayed enough? This is the lot of the Christ-less existence. Namely the lack of ASSURANCE OF SALVATION. Such a person is always wondering, “did I do enough to please God to be saved?” Or even worse, they arrive at the conclusion that they are basically a good person who God in no wise would send to hell.

But the Bible is clear. Jesus said in Jn 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
During a time of prayer and fasting, Cornelius received a vision of an angel coming to him and was instructed to send some men to Joppa to fetch Peter and Peter would then tell Cornelius what he must do.

His prayer and fasting opened up the ears of God to His plea and Peter was sent to him to “tell him words by which he and all his household would be saved” (Acts 11:14) namely the Gospel.

Cornelius and his household heard the Word, responded to it, and all were baptized and brought into God’s family. For Cornelius and his family, it was no longer a matter of what they had done for God, but what God had done for them through Christ.

Are you wrestling with assurance of your salvation? Do you find yourself wondering if you've done enough to please God? Or do you think you deserve to go to heaven because you are basically a good person?

This is a pained existence in the first case and a false hope in the second. Would you sincerely desire to know the way to heaven? Have you tried seeking the assurance of God through prayer and fasting?

Cornelius did and God granted he and his family “repentance that leads to life.”

I’m Duane Matz and that’s today’s Living Word.