​Scripture

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:16-17)

From the Sermons of John Wesley

“The testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.

This is properly called the full assurance of faith - not a bare conjecture, a feeble hope, or a wavering trust, but a clear, inward conviction, wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, that we are the children of God. It is not enthusiasm; it is not presumption. It is the very gift of God, promised in the gospel, sealed to us in Christ, and witnessed to our own heart by the Spirit who cannot lie.”

John Wesley, “The Witness of the Spirit, Discourse I” (1746)

From a Letter of John Newton

“You say you dare not call yourself a child of God. But I ask you this: Do you love him? Do you grieve when you have offended him? Do you run to Christ when your conscience smites you, or do you run from him? Do you find in yourself a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, a longing to know him better, to serve him more faithfully, to love him more purely?

These are not the marks of an enemy of God, my friend. These are the marks of a child who does not yet know his Father’s face. The Spirit witnesses not always in thunder, but often in this still, small voice of longing - this ache for God that the world cannot give and cannot take away. That very longing is his seal upon your soul.”

John Newton, Letters (adapted)

A Word for the Journey

One of the subtler cruelties of the enemy is to convince a true child of God that they are not, in fact, a child of God. He cannot undo your salvation, so he works instead to rob you of the joy of it. He whispers that your doubts disqualify you, that your failures have worn through God’s patience, that the assurance others seem to carry so easily is somehow not available to you. These are lies. Ancient lies, and well-worn ones. But lies nonetheless.

John Wesley understood this battle from the inside. Before Aldersgate, he was a man of formidable religious discipline who lacked the one thing discipline cannot manufacture: the settled, Spirit-given assurance that he was a beloved child of God. The Aldersgate moment did not make him a Christian, many historians believe he was genuinely converted before it. What it gave him was the witness of the Spirit. That inward impression, that direct testimony of the Spirit to his spirit, that he was God’s own. And it changed everything.

John Newton, that sailor, slave-trader-turned-pastor who understood grace from the gutter up, had a different pastoral instinct for those wrestling with assurance. He did not argue them into certainty with syllogisms. He asked them to look at their own heart’s direction. Do you love God? Do you grieve your sin? Do you run toward Christ or away from him when you fail? Newton knew what the anxious soul often forgets: the very longing for God is evidence of the Spirit’s presence. Dead men have no pulse. Dead souls have no hunger.

Paul, writing to the church at Rome, grounds assurance not in our performance but in a double testimony. The Spirit himself, the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, witnesses together with our spirit. It is not a solo act of human introspection. It’s a duet. As one person put it, it’s God’s Spirit harmonizing with the deepest register of your redeemed soul to sing the same song: you are his. You belong to him. You are an heir.

Assurance is not arrogance. To be certain of God’s love is not to be proud of your own merit, it’s to be overwhelmed by his. The believer who walks in full assurance does not strut; he kneels. He knows too well what he was saved from, and too well by whom, to think the confidence is his own. It is all of grace, received through faith, sealed by the Spirit, the very Spirit that was promised, given freely, and who will not be taken away.

If you are struggling to feel the warmth of that assurance today, may I offer you Newton’s pastoral question? Do you love him? Even a little? Even through the fog? That love did not originate with you. It is, as John tells us, derivative; we love because he first loved us. The fact that you love him at all, that you are reading these words and hoping they are true, is itself the Spirit’s footprint on the ground of your soul. Press on, dear pilgrim. You are more his than you know. Thanks be to God.

Questions for Reflection

1. How would you honestly describe your present level of assurance of salvation: settled, wavering, or largely absent? What do you believe most contributes to where you are?

2. Is there someone in your life, (a family member, a friend, a fellow pilgrim), who is quietly struggling with doubt or assurance? How might you come alongside them this week with Newton’s pastoral wisdom rather than argument or pressure?

3. Take ten minutes this week in silence with Romans 8:14-17 open before you. Ask the Spirit to witness to you directly. Then write down what you notice, whatever comes, however small. Make this a practice, not a one-time exercise.

A Closing Prayer
From the Prayers of John Calvin, adapted
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O Lord, we confess that we are too prone to cast our eyes downward upon our own unworthiness, and to forget that you have sealed us with your Spirit as a pledge of your love. Grant us, we pray, the full assurance of faith - not in ourselves, but in Christ alone, in whom we are fully known and fully loved. Let your Spirit bear witness with our spirit, that we might walk as your children, free from the bondage of fear, and firm in the hope that does not disappoint. May we neither presume upon your grace nor despair of it, but rest quietly and completely in your mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Scripture

Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ ... ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ (John 3:3, 6)

From the Journal of John Wesley (May 24, 1738)

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart.”

(John Wesley’s Journal, the Aldersgate experience)

A Prayer by Augustine of Hippo

“Too late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved You! Behold, You were within me, while I was outside: it was there that I sought You, and, a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which You have made. You were with me, but I was not with You. They kept me far from You, those fair things which, if they were not in You, would not exist at all.

You called, You cried, and You broke through my deafness. You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness. You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now do pant for You. I tasted You, and now I hunger and thirst for You. You touched me, and I have burned for Your peace.”

(Augustine, Confessions, Book X)

Reflection

John Wesley was already an ordained minister, a missionary, a man of prayer and discipline, yet he hadn’t been born again. On that May evening in 1738, Wesley experienced what Jesus described to Nicodemus: spiritual rebirth. It wasn’t emotional manipulation or religious excitement; it was the work of the Holy Spirit bringing him from death to life.

Augustine’s prayer captures the same reality from a different angle. For years, he sought satisfaction in created things - philosophy, pleasure, ambition - while God was calling him home. When the Spirit finally opened his eyes, Augustine realized he had been searching outside himself for what could only be found within: God himself, dwelling in the regenerate heart.

The new birth is not reformation but regeneration. It isn’t becoming a better version of yourself; it’s becoming a new creation in Christ. As Paul declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This is the foundation of the Christian life. Without the new birth, we’re merely religious. With it, we’re children of God, indwelt by the Spirit, alive to righteousness. Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed” because the Spirit bore witness with his spirit that he was a child of God (Romans 8:16). Augustine’s soul finally found rest because God had made him for himself, and his heart was restless until it rested in God.

Have you been born again? Not: have you attended church, been baptized, or grown up in a Christian home, but have you personally trusted in Christ alone for salvation? Has the Spirit brought you from death to life?

This is where the journey begins.

Questions for Reflection

1. When you reflect on your spiritual journey, can you identify a specific moment or period when you believe you were “born again”? How did this experience change you? If you did not have this type of experience, how did you come to know Christ and how has your relationship with him deepened over time?
2. How often do you feel a sense of assurance about your salvation? What contributes to or detracts from this assurance? What scriptural promises do you cling to for certainty of your eternal life with God?
   
3. In what ways do you see the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) manifesting in your life as evidence of your new birth? Which aspects do you feel need more development?

Closing Prayer

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see You in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Your glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells, the brighter Your stars shine.
Let me find Your light in my darkness,
Your life in my death,
Your joy in my sorrow,
Your grace in my sin,
Your riches in my poverty,
Your glory in my valley.

Amen.
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(Adapted from The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers)