September 2026
Growing in Assurance Through the Means of Grace
by Jon D. Payne
Feature Article
September 2026
Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
“Are you sure that you will go to heaven when you die?” I gently raised the question with the person sitting next to me. She was a Roman Catholic and had enthusiastically shared that she had just been on a pilgrimage to Europe. It was one of many religious excursions that she had taken over the years to visit holy sites and venerate sacred relics. In our brief conversation, I also learned that it was her practice to attend daily Mass. All of this, along with her in-flight reading on the seven sacraments, confirmed that she was deeply devoted to her faith.
So how did she answer my question? Without hesitation, she said, “No, I’m not sure that I’ll go to heaven, and perhaps that makes me a bad Catholic.” My response: “Actually, it makes you a consistent one.” I explained that when salvation, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, is understood to be a work of cooperation (i.e., Christ’s merits plus my own), there is ultimately no firm basis for salvation or assurance. Heaven remains uncertain because one never knows whether he is doing enough to earn a place there. She thought for a moment and then volleyed the question back to me: “Are you sure that you will go to heaven when you die?” To her apparent surprise, I responded, “Yes, I am.” I then explained that my confidence is not rooted in the quality or quantity of my good works. Rather, my confidence is grounded, by faith, in the all-sufficient work of Christ—His perfect life, substitutionary death, and hell-conquering resurrection.
It’s not what I’ve done for Christ that makes me sure of my redemption and heavenly home. It’s what He’s done for me. Christ’s cleansing blood and justifying righteousness (alone!) are sufficient to save (Rom. 3:22; Phil. 3:8–10). Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” so that I would one day cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15–16; Gal. 4:4–7). As a result, I can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace [and] receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Assurance is the fruit of saving faith in Christ.
Banners of Christ’s Love
Christians possess assurance of faith in varying measure. Therefore, every Christian should diligently strive to strengthen and grow assurance through the ordinary means of grace. What are the ordinary means of grace? The Word, sacraments, and prayer (Acts 2:42)—outward means through which God inwardly assures believers of His steadfast love and covenant faithfulness in Christ. Through the means of grace, our Savior reassures us of His abiding presence, saving power, and unshakable promises. John Owen states that by these means “Christ communicates his love and grace to us, and in and by them we renew our faith in him.” Assurance, therefore, grows in the fertile soil of the means of grace. Conversely, it withers in the neglect of them.
Reasons for Wavering Assurance
Assurance is rarely static. Based on a number of external and internal factors, assurance grows and diminishes in the heart of a believer. It waxes and wanes. Joel Beeke writes, “Just as an unseasonable frost may prevent a living tree from bearing fruit for a season, so assurance may be wanting where there is true faith, and it may even be lost to a believer for a time.” Consequently, it’s not uncommon for Christians to experience struggles with assurance. The Westminster Confession of Faith states that “true believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted [i.e., suspended]” (18.4). How does this happen? In many cases, assurance is assaulted by the practice of presumptuous sin. Sin is a deadly weed that strangles the choicest flowers of assurance. The only assurance that thrives alongside unrepentant sin is a counterfeit assurance, that which is fueled by “false hopes and carnal presumptions” (WCF 18.1). “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). Sin quenches the Spirit of adoption (1 Thess. 5:19) and dampens the flames of assurance.
An additional cause for the weakening of assurance is God’s “withdrawing the light of his countenance” (WCF 18.4; see Ps. 6:2–3). The Puritans called this the “dark night of the soul.” According to His mysterious providence, God sometimes leads His children into a valley of spiritual barrenness. By His severe mercy, He leads us through these dark valleys, ultimately to enlarge our faith and strengthen our assurance (Job 42:1–6; Isa. 50:10).
Sin and the sovereignty of God are two factors that explain the weakening of a Christian’s assurance. But perhaps the most prominent reason for faltering faith and assurance is the “negligence in preserving of it” through the “right use of ordinary means” (WCF 18.3–4). In other words, when Christians neglect Lord’s Day worship, and thus disregard the administration of the Word, sacraments, and prayer, their assurance languishes. Without the regular partaking of this spiritual manna, doubts and fears arise, affection for God weakens, and love for the world surges. The heart grows distant from God. Christ becomes blurry. This is precisely why the author to the Hebrews encourages Christians to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Heb. 10:24–25, emphasis added).
Dear Christian, the means of grace are a nonnegotiable. They are necessary for all who want to grow in their faith and be assured of God’s saving love and presence in their lives. Paul declares, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The Holy Spirit, through the gospel, creates and nurtures saving faith and assurance. Again, Owen writes: “Christ, by his word, knocks at the door of the heart. If it is opened by faith, he comes in and dines with men, graciously reviving their souls by assuring them that he loves them and that his Father also loves them (Rev. 3:20; John 14:23).”
Concerning the institution of a new covenant meal, Jesus commands the church to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). The Lord’s Supper is a perpetual reminder of Christ’s atoning death and the blessings of His coming kingdom (Luke 22:18). Through the waters of baptism, we are reminded that Jesus is our eternal surety. He will be with us always (Matt. 28:18–20).
Prayer is also a means of grace. Through prayer, believers commune with God and receive His grace, comfort, and strength (Rom. 8:26–27; Heb. 4:16; Westminster Larger Catechism 180–82). John Bunyan explains, “Prayer opens the heart of God and fills the empty soul.” Moreover, Ezekiel Hopkins writes, “Prayer is the means appointed by God to obtain the blessings and mercies of which we stand in need.” To neglect the Word, sacraments, and prayer, therefore, is to neglect the very means that Christ Himself ordained for the building up of His disciples’ faith and assurance.
A Sufficient Remedy
Dear Christian, does God feel a million miles away? Is your heart flooded with spiritual pride? Do fear, anxiety, and doubt rack your soul? Does Jesus seem like an old acquaintance rather than an intimate friend? Has secret sin quenched the Holy Spirit and extinguished the fires of assurance in your heart? Are you, like the woman on the plane, unsure where you will spend eternity?
Our loving and merciful Savior instituted the ordinary means of grace as a remedy to such spiritual afflictions. R.C. Sproul states that the means of grace are indeed “sufficient to achieve assurance.” Through the faithful preaching of God’s Word, we hear the voice of Christ powerfully remind us of His cleansing blood, justifying righteousness, and call to discipleship. Through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, His covenant mercies are visibly and tangibly confirmed. Through Spirit-empowered prayer, He communes with us as we pour out our souls in praise and gratitude to God.
Dear believer, the means of grace are fresh winds in the sails of assurance. Every Lord’s Day, they communicate Christ to His people and steer us toward our guaranteed inheritance as sons in the Son (Rom. 8:15–17; Eph. 1:11–14). Therefore, receive the means of grace, by faith, every Lord’s Day and marvel at God’s wise and loving provision for your soul.