Last week I asked for prayer for a talk I was to give at our church's ladies' discipleship class. Thank you for praying!
I had about 20 minutes to let loose a fire hydrant of Scripture and questions for further study on the subject of assurance of salvation-- what it is founded on and what it has to do with discipleship. I found it to be quite challenging to prepare this material mainly because of both the magnitude of the subject and the incredible diversity in the backgrounds present in our church.
From the feedback I received afterward, the fire hydrant method was effective. That is, a water gun can hit a single issue/question, but a fire hydrant can soak everyone in the vicinity. That fire hydrant, of course, is the unparalleled work of Jesus on the cross that is effective for salvation and sufficient for our assurance for-ever. We can all, no matter of what our background was before we came to Christ, find eternally-satisfying answers to all our particular questions in the gospel.
I beefed-up the outline I used to speak from with complete sentences so that the ladies could use it for reference. You can download it here if you like.
Three of the resources that we gave away during the class (and highly recommend) are these:
- Greg Gilbert's What Is The Gospel?
- J.D. Greear's Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart
- Mike McKinley's Am I Really A Christian?