Dead Certain

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life”
1 John 1:1 (ESV)

I’m three and a half years old, standing before an open casket and staring at the man I called Papa. My aunt finally pulls me away. "He's not waking up." Standing over someone who is not going to wake up, you have to ask: when will it be your turn, where are you going, and how certain are you?

Mark Twain once said, "It ain't what you know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." There is nowhere that sentence makes more sense than talking about eternity. The apostle John writes five chapters to people who are confident in their salvation, but confidence is not the same as correctness. Being sure you are going to Heaven when you are not is the most dangerous condition any person can be in.

John doesn't write to scare you. He writes because Jesus didn't die on the cross to leave you guessing. He opens his letter like a witness on the stand. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes" (1 John 1:1, ESV). The foundation John is laying is not built on feeling, but on fact.

Before you close your Bible today, ask yourself one honest question. If someone pressed you right now on why you are certain of eternal life, could you answer with anything more than a feeling?

John wrote five chapters to answer that question, and every answer is built on fact, not feeling. Start here. Open 1 John today and let the man who heard Him, saw Him, and touched Him walk you from feeling all the way to knowing. Because being dead certain and being right are not always the same thing, but with John as your guide, they can be.

Prayer: Father, thank You for the certainty I have in You that is more than a feeling. Search me honestly today. Help me truly know the way Your Word describes, so I build my life on Your truth. In Jesus' Name, Amen.