Thank thank you for answering my questions. My name is Joy. How do I know if I am saved if I have blasphemous thoughts? Should I be taking communion if I am not sure if I am saved? If I am not chosen, would I even care about being saved?

Really good questions, Joy. I can I can hear the cry of your heart, Joy? I I wanna make it as simple as I can. The fact that you are asking these questions is evidence of the work of God in your heart. It is evidence of your desire for him and for salvation and to know him.

That that is evident there. The fact that you would stand up in front of all of us and and unbear your heart in such a sweet and honest way is evidence of the of the hunger of your heart to know him, and I think that's what you're essentially saying. The way you know that you are saved is by your desire. Do you desire to know God?

Yes.

Do you desire that he would know you and love you?

Yes.

Do you desire to love him?

Yes.

Do you desire to honor him?

Yes.

Do you desire to obey his word?

I do, but I can't do it on my own strength.

It's all of grace. So what you're saying to me is essentially the same cry that came out of the noblest of all Christians. And that very cry is evidence of the work of God in your heart, that that you desire to know God, to be loved by God, to love God, to honor God, to obey God, and that you know you can't is a statement of a genuine believer because you recognize that you aren't everything you should be, and you are utterly dependent upon God himself and upon the Holy Spirit. That's true of your salvation. You can't save yourself, and you can't sanctify yourself. So you're you're where all honest Christians live. You're I'm not what I what I wanna be, but I know what I wanna be. I'm not what I ought to be, but I know what I ought to be. It's it's about direction. It's about affection. It's about love. We've talked about that recently when Jesus was restoring Peter. In John 21, he said three times, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? And Peter had been caught in disobedience again, and yet he said, Lord, you know you know me. You know I love you. Then feed my sheep. He accepted the failing life of Peter, the tendency to be disobedient. But he accepted that man, and he accepts all of us if we love him and calls on us to love him more. So you don't you don't want to evaluate character of your salvation by your failures. You want to assess the genuineness of your salvation by your desires, by what you love, what you long for, what you want. And you're here, and that that says everything. This is not a a place for people running from god. This is a place for people running to him. The purest joy in the Christian life comes when we are obeying him, loving him, serving him, worshiping him. That's when we enjoy the most assurance. Security is one thing. Security means that I am saved, and he will keep me until I see him face to face. I'm secure in him. That's not assurance. Assurance is the confidence I have in my mind of my salvation. Many people are saved. They're secure, secured by god in that salvation, but they don't always have the assurance. Why do we struggle with assurance? Because we know our weakness, because we know our temptations, because we know we're not what we ought to be, sometimes because we fall into a pattern of sin and we lose our assurance, sometimes because perhaps we have been taught wrongly that you might do something and cause you to lose your salvation, and that generates a certain amount of fear. But to go back to the main point, the very desire of your heart is the evidence of the work of god in your life, because unregenerate enemies of god don't have those desires.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joy.