We’re climbing up the mountain of assurance, and I pray the closer we come to the top, the sweeter you realize assurance is. You can sing with far more meaning, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, oh what a foretaste of glory divine.” We have three steps left to take up the mountain, and we only have this last issue to fit it all in. So, without further delay, (By now, you have learned to define “delay” by the length of time between my articles.) let’s take the last three steps.

FROM PATIENCE TO GODLINESS

So far, here is the progression of these steps: first we must have a pure heart of virtue before we are able to know God intimately. Then, as we get to know God, we find He is so different than we are, and we must learn to say “no” to ourselves by temperance. Before long, this brings us to God’s request of full surrender, and the pressure mounts to just quit. At that point, it will take patience to keep from folding under the pressure.

If we choose to patiently endure and practice godly character over a span of time, we begin to be molded into the very image of God. The patience begins to pay off. That patient endurance produces an experience in the realm of God’s character. As we see God’s character formed in us and realize we’ve gained some experience in godliness, there is a hope that springs up in our heart about what God can do in the future. Isn’t this exactly what Romans 5 says?

“. . . tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope . . .”

Romans 5:3-4

This verse makes it clear that when we are tested and display the patience to continue doing right, we gain experience. In other words, we begin to see how God does things. We begin to understand how He operates. We begin to see the cycles in our own lives, and understand how the Lord is working through them. Instead of just trying to imitate God, we begin to think like God. No longer is it simply acting like God, but being like God. Your life of godliness is becoming less like a list of restraining guidelines and more of the inward principle that rules your life. This is how patience leads to godliness. When you start looking back down that mountain and clearly view the working of God and understand His way, there is great hope (assurance) that enters your heart. Let’s take a closer look at godliness.

STEP NUMBER FIVE: GODLINESS = BEING LIKE GOD

What in your life resembles God? Are you like God in the way that you think, talk, and act? What is it that you do that would cause people to say, “He does that just like God would?” Do the people in your church point to you and say, “Now there’s a godly girl?” How about it, are you like God? We are commanded to be like God in I Peter 1:16.

“Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

I Peter 1:16

I’m confident that most young people and adults alike doubt their salvation because they have not allowed themselves to become like God. They haven’t taken the steps of virtue, knowledge, temperance, and patience that produce true godliness, and they find themselves at a point in life where they are nothing like God. To sooth the conscience, they do some religious things like church attendance and prayers to make them think that they are somewhat like God, but they are greatly troubled as to why they have such an appetite for things that God despises.

Do you long to dress in the fashions of the world? Do you long to be accepted by the people of the world? Do you thirst for the music and movie entertainment of the world? Truth be known, there are Christian teens who still watch dirty movies, Mtv, and other carnal venues of entertainment. Let me ask you a question: does God watch Mtv? Does God listen to Rock music? Does God watch dirty movies? Does God swear when He gets angry? “Well, of course not!” Then why do you? Aren’t you supposed to be like God? Why do you have such an appetite for things that God despises?

If there’s anything I’ve learned about godliness, it’s this: to be like God, you’re going to have to be totally different than the world. Do you have a desire to be totally different than the world? From most appearances of Christian teens, I find often there is a great desire to be like the world. Does it bother you that there are those in the world who think you are one of them? Perhaps that is the desired affect of your actions and lifestyle. It’s amazing to me that a Christian teen would want to be like a world that he will know for only a short time, but not care to be like the God that he will know for eternity.

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world . . . the world passeth away and the lusts thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

I John 2:15, 17

All the things of the world are temporal. Why would a Christian set his affections and passions on these fleeting evils? Perhaps these questions unveil a great need in your life to take the fifth step up the mountain. You will never know the assurance of your salvation until you take this step. Let’s take a look at step number 6.

FROM GODLINESS TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS

When we begin to let God form His character in our life, we quickly discover the defining characteristic of our God: God is love! Listen to the progression of Romans 5 once again:

“. . . tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts . . .”

Romans 5:3-5

The final result of all godliness is the love of God flowing through us. That’s why the Bible says that all the law is summed up in one word, love! Have you yet taken these last two steps up the mountain? It’s incredible how almost anyone can imitate the first five steps for a period of time, but true love is impossible to imitate successfully. Only a long walk up the mountain with God can produce true love. Let’s take a closer look.

STEP NUMBER SIX: BROTHERLY KINDNESS = TENDER AFFECTION LIVED OUT IN ACTION

When the Lord was choosing a way to describe a sweet, affectionate kindness, He used the metaphor of “brotherly kindness.” Truly, that’s the best way to explain the love we should have for each other: the same love that a brother has for his brother. Right? I’m afraid in our modern family atmosphere, this analogy may not be the best. What if we judged the accuracy of this analogy by the way you treat your siblings? Are you kind to your brothers and sisters? It’s amazing to me how many supposedly “godly” young people seem to have an earned Ph.D. in family cruelty. To watch their family activity, one would think they had completed an intense study in the arts of teasing, troubling, and torturing.

When is the last time you did something nice for someone other than yourself? When is the last time you surprised someone with an open display of tender affection lived out in action? Do you really have brotherly kindness in you? Some Christians who have all the right standards have a tough time just being nice to others. Have they truly stepped up the mountain? Whose life has been changed because of a powerful act of kindness from you?

If you’re going to make it up the top of this mountain, you are going to have to surrender your life to be used by God to touch the lives of others. They will be touched as you display this sixth step of brotherly kindness.

FROM BROTHERLY KINDNESS TO LOVE

Many folks who are troubled by bitterness, resentment, and unresolved feelings wonder how it could be possible to love certain people. They feel the seventh step is impossible because of what someone did to them or said about them. It could be that there was an abusive situation, and you were the victim of someone else’s sinful selfishness and cruelty. How could you possibly ever make it up the mountain? Think about the following verse:

“Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.”

Proverbs 16:3

In our current emphasis, we could apply this verse as follows: commit yourself to acts of kindness to that individual, and your love for them will be established. Brotherly kindness must precede that self denying agape love of the heart. Don’t wait for love to well up in your heart for them; start looking for kind things to do for them and allow God to develop that love in your heart. There are many people in my heart that I struggle having an agape love for, and the only way I’ve been able to have victory is by committing my works to the LORD and allowing Him to establish that love in my heart.

STEP NUMBER SEVEN: LOVE = SELF-DENYING LOVE

The final step up the mountain of assurance is this agape love. Here, we learn by Christ’s example to surrender all that we have and are for the betterment of those around us. We learn to love not in word only, but in deed and in truth. We learn to give of ourselves completely and expect nothing in return.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let’s be honest with ourselves as we close out this series. How many steps up the mountain have you taken? If none, there should be no mystery as to why you are struggling with your assurance. You’re in that valley fog, and you can’t see straight. Listen to the words of our text in II Peter 1:

“For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful . . .”

II Peter 1:8

If you will add these seven steps to your life, you will never struggle with doubt about your salvation. This is what our passage is saying. The fruit in your life will bring the assurance of your conversion. Think about the opposite of what this passage promises: if you don’t add these steps you will be barren and unfruitful. When you inspect a field year after year after year and never see any fruit growing, what do you begin to wonder? You wonder whether or not seed was ever truly planted there. If you don’t add these steps to your faith, you will not see any fruit in your life, and you will wonder if the seed of the Gospel was ever truly planted in your heart.

There is a great danger in lacking these seven steps in your life. You could lack talent and still get by fine. You could lack wealth and still get by fine. You could lack intelligence and still get by fine. But he that lacketh these things . . .

“But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”

II Peter 1:9

There is a blindness in the valley caused by the fog of carnality and worldliness. You become short sighted: you can’t see past the end of your nose. It may be that you have read about these seven steps and think to yourself, “I just can’t see how that could be that important.” You cannot see afar off. You cannot see that the end of your life will be disaster outside of your adding these things. You cannot see because you are blind. What’s the promised result of this blindness? You’ll forget you were purged from your old sins. You’ll forget whether or not you truly have been saved and had your sins purged in His precious blood. You will doubt your salvation.

David Gibbs of the Christian Law Association relates the following story of a trip he took to Thailand. There in the capitol city, he found out first hand what driving in Thailand was like. There were nearly ten lanes of traffic on both sides of the small median. Because there were no lines to distinguish between lanes, the traffic would create additional lanes so they could move faster. I’m told that it is not unusual for cars to drive within 6 inches of each other. Then, if traffic backs up badly enough, some hazard their lives by jumping the median and driving in the oncoming lanes.

Dr. Gibbs explained that one of the most unusual habits of the drivers occurs when traffic is backed up and moving bumper to bumper slow. His taxi driver began bumping the car in front of them repeatedly. Dr. Gibbs tried to explain that they were backed up and so it really wasn’t their fault. Then the car behind them started bumping them. Suddenly he realized that every car for miles was doing the same thing.

As they continued waiting and bumping, their native taxi driver began to scream in English, “She die! She die! You see, she die!” He was pointing to the opposite side of traffic where the cars were moving quickly, and to their utter horror, they spotted a strikingly beautiful, yet completely blind Bangkok teen girl who had stumbled out onto the chaos of the highway. Dr. Gibbs felt certain that someone would stop to aid this helpless girl. What he did not know at the time is that the law of the highway states that the pedestrian is always considered wrong even in the case of death.

What occurred next took their breath away; a driver directed his car straight at the girl’s arm that she was holding out, and it literally splintered at the impact of the metal to the bone. As blood poured down her arm, and the white bone protruded grotesquely, she pulled her wounded limb in and placed her other arm out in its place. Dr. Gibbs and his companion immediately reached for the door and attempted to get out. However, because the cars on either side of them were within reaching distance, they couldn’t jar the doors open far enough to get out. Then, the taxi driver began screaming at them, “No boss! No boss! You die too! You die too!” As traffic picked up on their side of the median, Dr. Gibbs said that he looked back and caught the last glimpse of that blind teenage girl as she groped about in the darkness.

That is a perfect picture of a Christian who is stumbling around in the valley fog of this world. They are completely blind, and they can’t see the danger that is all around them. They are being hit by the filth of Hollywood, Rock music, and other evil vices of this world. Yet they can’t see the danger, and many of them never do until it is too late. They get so lost in the fog, so lost in the world, so lost in sin, that one day Satan comes along and hits them with doubt, and they fall away from the Christian life. Oh, what a horrible ending. That’s why II Peter says:

“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”

II Peter 1:10

If you will give all diligence to add these things to your life, you will never stumble in the valley fog. You can make your salvation sure. Rather than living the rest of your life in the blinding darkness of the valley, why don’t you start climbing today. You have God’s promise that if you do, He will keep you from stumbling.

II Peter 1 unfolds like a beautiful flower of assurance, a flower with seven soft petals. It blooms with exquisite beauty and yields a rare perfume. Once you inhale the sweet fragrance and take in the rare beauty, your heart will be filled with peace, rest, and assurance. Oh, what a flower, yet it only grows in one rare condition, high altitudes. As a matter of fact, it only grows on the mountain. Not once has a flower of assurance ever been found to grow in the valley. Climb then! Climb the mountain of assurance and claim one of these flowers for yourself.