September 2026
Why Christians Struggle with Assurance
Feature Article
September 2026
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Even the most mature of saints can wrestle with assurance of salvation, as biographies of pastors and missionaries will attest. Psalms are often windows into the souls of their writers, and in them we observe the same sorts of struggles of wondering whether God has forgotten or forsaken them. Believers through the ages sometimes grapple with assurance.
While pastors have the shepherding responsibility of tending to those of their flock struggling with assurance, all of us in Christ share in ministry to one another. We want to understand what may be prompting a lack of assurance so that we can extend targeted care to those in distress and also fortify our own faith in times of doubt.
Before we explore expressions of struggle, it should be noted that someone might lack assurance because there is no assurance to be had. Some might be professors of faith but not possessors. Paul urges the church at Corinth: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Cor. 13:5). Such testing is conducted through the light of God’s Word and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Ironically, it is not the mere professor of faith who typically struggles with lack of assurance. Rather, it is the true believer with a tender conscience who wrestles at times with assurance of salvation. We might go so far as to say that the lack of assurance may well be a symptom of salvation, an indicator that a person is alive by the Spirit rather than still dead in sin and insensitive to it.
It is helpful, when seeking to understand a struggle with assurance, to take note of what is prompting distress of soul at this time. Perhaps doubts arise on the heels of a funeral, or in response to something recently read, or at the outset of some horrific experience. God may well use these things to bring a lack of assurance to the surface so that it can be addressed and the believer fortified in his or her faith.
Before we take stock of how a lack of assurance might find expression, we should note that such qualms reflect a common condition of believers in that they are in the world but not of it (John 17:14–17). Though they have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:13), they experience oppression in a world ravaged by sin. In this world, we are subject to the efforts of our enemy, the devil, who sows seeds of doubt and seeks to discredit the work of Christ, disparage the Word of God, and fan the flame of pride.
God’s remedy for sin is the gospel, whereby the guilt of sin is atoned for and perfect obedience reckoned. The gospel speaks to what Christ did for the salvation of sinners as the exclusive means of salvation provided by God. Assurance of salvation is tied to our union with Christ, who did not make sinners redeemable but instead actually redeemed those whom He came to save. In the gospel there is no fissure of failing because it is all of Christ. Confidence in our salvation relates to comprehension of the gospel and apprehension of it by faith.
How might lack of assurance find voice? We can take note of three expressions of doubt or confusion that help us understand and address the struggles of the heart.
“Why would God save me?”
At its heart, this expresses a lack of understanding of the gospel of grace. When a believer says, “I am not worthy,” he can think that he is disqualifying himself when in fact he is making a case for grace. We are not worthy of God’s favor. No one is worthy. God set His love on the undeserving. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:8–9).
Grace is God’s unmerited, undeserved, unexpected favor. It is poured out on those who deserve nothing but condemnation and have no reason to expect favor or any basis to merit it. An understanding of grace agrees that a person is not worthy. In answer to the question why God would save him, he looks away from himself to the sovereign love of God. God makes that clear in His election of Israel: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you” (Deut. 7:7–8; see Rom. 9:10–11).
Paradoxically, a sense of unworthiness can arise from pride masquerading as humility. Satan can appeal to this pride and inflame it to undermine the grace of the gospel that brings all glory to the God of grace.
“My sin is too great”
This complaint undermines assurance in that it casts doubt on the sufficiency of Christ’s saving work. We look at our lives and see accumulated sin, much of it egregious and willful, and question the efficacy of the cross. Perhaps intellectually we believe that Jesus paid it all, but doubts and guilt plague us, leading to restlessness of spirit and discomfort of soul.
Surprisingly, this complaint is not forceful enough. A comprehensive accounting of our sin or an accurate evaluation of its atrocity in the sight of the holy God will lead to something far more daunting. The insurmountable obstacle of our sin looming before us is but an indication of the vastness of sin lurking beneath. Even our righteousness must be counted on the debit side of the ledger. Our sin is greater than we could conceive.
This struggle is addressed by expanding our view of sin to grasp the absolute necessity that God incarnate bear that sin if divine justice is to be met. Wherever and whatever sin is found or could be found, it has been accounted for, and its debt paid for, at the cross. “It is finished” declares full satisfaction so that before the judgment seat of God there will be no surprises. As the hymn writer expressed it: “My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.”
“My life is still infested with sin”
This threat to assurance is a common one because the presence of sin in our lives batters the foundation of our assurance as waves of the sea batter the rocks, undermining not the foundation but our confidence in it. It compels us to ask: “Am I really saved? Am I really dead to sin and alive in Christ?”
At this point, our enemy mounts his attacks. John identifies the devil as “the accuser of our brothers” (Rev. 12:10). He prosecutes our transgressions against us, and he has no lack of indictments. We sin daily in thought, word, and deed, by commission and omission, intentional and unintentional, willful and neglectful. We cannot dispute the mounting charges against us, and so doubts may lay siege to our souls.
But for every sin prosecuted by Satan, our Advocate declares that He paid that debt. He atoned for the guilt of that sin. He suffered the penalty deserved. And so Satan is disarmed. His accusations find no traction. Satan points out our sin to drive us to despair; the Holy Spirit points out our sin to drive us to Christ, and there we find assurance.
John makes it clear in his first epistle that we continue to sin (1 John 1:8, 10). In fact, awareness of sin is an indicator of new birth and union with Christ (5:13). Forgiveness is gained not by mere confession of sin but by confession of Christ, who is the end of sin (1:9; 2:2).
Wrestling with assurance can stem from confusing justification and sanctification. The sin that remains so prevalent in our lives has been robbed of its condemning power at the cross. The grace that brings assurance is the grace that ministers reassurance to us when we do sin.
Christians’ confidence in our salvation comes not from the outcome of our waging battles with doubts, fears, inadequacies, or iniquities. It comes from resting in Him who gave Himself for us and who ever lives to intercede for us. Nothing in all the created order can wrest us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.