Have you ever considered the assurance of your salvation? If you were to pass away tonight, do you have complete certainty that you would go to heaven? It’s a thought-provoking question worth contemplating.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word 
and believes him who sent me has eternal life. 
He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

There are many reasons why it is important to possess this assurance, but J.C. Ryle eloquently sets forth the difference this makes in the life of a follower of Jesus:

“Now assurance goes far 
to set a child of God free 
from a painful kind of bondage… 
It enables him to feel that 
the great business of life is a settled business, 
the great debt is a paid debt, 
the great disease is a healed disease, 
and the great work is a finished work; 
and all other business, diseases, debts and works 
are then by comparison small.  
In this way assurance makes you patient in tribulation, 
calm under bereavements, unmoved in sorrow, 
not afraid of evil tidings, in every condition content. 
It sweetens your bitter cups; 
it lessens the burden of your crosses, 
it smooths the rough places over which you travel; 
it lightens the valley of the shadow of death. 
It makes you always feel that 
you has something solid beneath your feet 
and something firm in your hands — 
a sure friend by the way, 
and a sure home at the end of your days.” 
– Holiness, pp. 107-108.