Gentle and Lowly, Chapter 6 - “I Will Not Cast Out”

The assurance of salvation can be a tough concept to take to heart. We can know that God saves those who confess Christ in faith, but it is all too easy to not know it. In my own experience, I fought with doubt about salvation because I could not believe that the good news of the Gospel was good enough. That’s because I placed way too much emphasis on me. I looked at my heart which continued to crave sinful things, my mind which so often failed to focus on the things of God, and my walk with God which could only be described as pitiful. Weighing those things on my own conception of the cosmic scale that determined if I was “really” a Christian or not, I was always found wanting. I was even rebaptized by a church I had been a member of for years because I confessed that I didn’t really know that I was saved because I doubted me.

This hyper-focus on our own performance is not only contrary to the Gospel, it is contrary to the very heart of Jesus. As Dane Ortlund puts it in this chapter, “Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out.” I am not good enough. I don’t try hard enough. I can’t love enough. I mess up too much. All these things are unquestionably true. And the good news of the Gospel, of Christ’s love for us, is that we have salvation in Christ even though these things are true. As Ortlund quotes Jesus, “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). It was God’s pleasure to give us Jesus, to give us away to come to Him.

And to come to Him is all that is required. “The only thing required to enjoy such love is to come to Him. To ask Him to take us in.” It is not the “strength of resolve” to trust Him to save you. It is not the quality of your faith that determines whether you are Christ’s and He is yours. Instead, it’s the object of that faith: Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? Do you trust Him? That’s what is required for Christ to hold you fast. God doesn’t look at our feeble attempts to love Him, to obey Him, to follow Him and judge us on those. Instead, He sees the perfection of the Christ who died for them and declares, “You are Mine.” Brothers and sisters, know that Christ holds us securely. Not because we can try hard enough, but because holding onto us is not hard for Him at all. He has promised; He will not cast us out.