GTY: Strength For Today Daily Devotional

Fellowship with Christ

letters@gty.org (Grace to You) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

“What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

Enjoying communion with both God and Jesus Christ is solid proof that one’s salvation is real.

When we hold baptisms in the church I pastor, invariably every person who gives their testimony will describe the overwhelming sense of forgiveness they now feel and the new purpose they have for their lives. They are expressing a wonderful result of salvation in Christ, of which Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10). By saying that life could be abundant, Jesus was saying that salvation would result in more than a change of position—it is a change of experience! The Christian life is a rich life in which we are meant to experience joy, peace, love, and purpose.

The abundant life in Christ begins with a close communion and fellowship with the living God and the living Christ. The apostle Paul says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). In Galatians 2:20 Paul describes what that fellowship meant to him personally: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Great intimacy with Christ belongs to all genuine believers.

Have you experienced communion with God and Christ? Have you sensed Their presence? Does your love for Them draw you into Their presence? Have you experienced the exhilarating joy of talking in prayer to the living God? And have you experienced the thrill of discovering a new truth in His Word? If you have, then you have experienced the abundant life that Jesus promised to all who put their trust in Him.

Suggestions for Prayer

Much like God asked Israel to recount the great works He had done for them, meditate on the many ways God has made your life richer as a result of knowing Him.

For Further Study

Read Romans 8:15; 2 Corinthians 1:3; Ephesians 5:19; Philippians 4:19; Hebrews 4:16; and 1 Peter 5:10.

What does each verse teach about your relationship with God?
In what ways is your life abundant as a result?

Additional Resources

In Order That You May Know

letters@gty.org (Grace to You) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).

The apostle John presents eleven objective and subjective tests for assurance of salvation.

The New Testament epistles are filled with enough material on assurance to fill volumes of commentaries. Yet there is one small epistle, 1 John, that was written to deal exclusively with the issue of assurance. The apostle John states his reason for writing this letter in our verse for today: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life” (emphasis added). John did not want his readers to doubt their salvation; he wanted them to have full assurance of it.

Certainly what John wrote in this epistle will not disturb genuine believers, but it will alarm anyone who has a false sense of assurance. In fact, he directed his letter to those who have placed their faith in Christ, which is the bedrock of all assurance: “I have written to you who believe.” There is no place for self-examination outside of faith in Christ. That’s why everything John says about assurance is predicated on faith in Christ and the promises of Scripture.

Throughout his epistle, John maintains a delicate balance between the objective and subjective grounds of assurance. The objective evidence makes up a doctrinal test, while the subjective evidence provides a moral test. John moves in and out between the two kinds of tests as he presents a total of eleven criteria that will indicate whether one possesses eternal life.

As you study through these tests for the next eleven days, they will confirm for you, if you are a genuine believer, the reality of your salvation. But if you have been given a false assurance, you will know where you stand and what you need to do.

Suggestions for Prayer

If you are a true believer, ask God to use these upcoming days to give you a greater love for Him. If you’re not sure if you truly know our great Lord and Savior, ask Him to reveal Himself to you so that these next few days will be life-changing ones.

For Further Study

Read John 20:31. How would reading through the Gospel of John also provide assurance of salvation? Begin such a reading plan.

Additional Resources

Joy in God

letters@gty.org (Grace to You) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

“We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:11).

The final link in the chain that eternally binds believers to Christ is their joy or exultation in God.

Perhaps nowhere outside of Scripture has Christian joy been expressed more beautifully than in these stanzas from Charles Wesley’s hymn “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”:

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!

Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come;
And leap, ye lame for joy!

Galatians 5:22 says that “joy” is one aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, and as such it is one of the great securities of salvation. The Greek for “joy” means “to exult,” “to rejoice jubilantly,” or “to be thrilled.” What is our motivation to be so thrilled? Paul says it’s because we received reconciliation from Christ. God gives us abundant joy both in our salvation and ultimately for who God is. Thus our present sense of internal joy is an additional guarantee of our future salvation.

One of the reasons David was a man after God’s own heart was his rejoicing in the Lord for the Lord’s own sake. He said, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Ps. 34:3). Other psalmists echoed that same joy. One wrote, “For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name” (Ps. 33:21), while another said, “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and upon the lyre I shall praise Thee, O God, my God” (Ps. 43:4). As you make God the focus of your joy, He will grant you an assurance only He can give.

Suggestions for Prayer

How often do you exult in what God has accomplished for you? Ask God to give you a greater joy in Him as you learn more about Him from His Word.

For Further Study

Look up “joy” in a concordance and determine the percentage of the references that refer to joy in one’s salvation.
What significant application can you make from those verses?

Additional Resources

Certainty of Deliverance

letters@gty.org (Grace to You) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:9-10).

Jesus Christ delivers His brethren not only from sin and its judgment, but also from uncertainty and doubt about that deliverance.

God is a God of wrath. But the wrath due to be poured out on all mankind, Christ took on Himself. That’s what the apostle Paul meant when he said that those who put their faith in Him have been “justified by His blood” and are assured of being “saved from the wrath of God through [Christ]” (Rom. 5:9). As a result of Christ’s atoning work, all Christians are identified with Christ, are adopted as God’s children through Him, and are no longer “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).

But Paul doesn’t stop there because the ongoing intercessory work of Christ has great significance for every believer and the security of his salvation. In Romans 5:10 Paul argues from the greater to the lesser to show that it was a much greater work of God to bring sinners to grace than to bring them to glory. Since God brought us to Himself when we were enemies, we will be reconciled continually now that we are His friends. When God first reconciled us, we were wretched, vile, and godless sinners. Since that was not a barrier to His reconciling us then, there is nothing that can prevent the living Christ from keeping us reconciled.

This truth has great ramifications for our assurance. If God already secured our deliverance from sin, death, and future judgment, how could our present spiritual life possibly be in jeopardy? How can a Christian, whose past and future salvation are guaranteed by God, be insecure in the intervening time? If sin in the greatest degree could not prevent our becoming reconciled, how can sin in lesser degree prevent our staying reconciled? Our salvation can’t be any more secure than that.

Suggestions for Prayer

Ask God to reveal to you how you might even now be insecure about your salvation. Then ask Him to make the intercessory work of Christ more real to you each day.

For Further Study

Read John 5:26; 10:28-29; 14:19; Romans 8:34-39; Colossians 3:3-4; Hebrews 7:25; and Revelation 1:18.

List all the securities you can find.
How does Christ save you by His life?

Additional Resources

The Love of God

letters@gty.org (Grace to You) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700

“The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:5-8).

Salvation ushers believers into a love relationship with God that lasts throughout eternity.

The eighteenth-century hymn writer William Cowper wrote in “There Is a Fountain”:

E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme
And shall be till I die.

Perhaps the most overwhelming concept in all Christianity is that God loved us so much “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And more than that, God even graciously imparts His love to us—He pours it “out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5). Paul here reveals that in Christ we are given subjective evidence of salvation. God Himself implants that evidence deep within us. As a result, we love the One who first loved us (1 John 4:7-10).

The idea that God “poured out” His love refers to a lavish outpouring. God didn’t just squeeze out His love in little drops—He poured it out in immeasurable torrents. And that is seen in perhaps the greatest manifestation of God’s love in all eternity: when we were ungodly sinners totally incapable of bringing ourselves to God, He sent His Son to die for us who were completely unworthy of such love.

Think of how God’s love impacts your assurance. Now that you are saved, you can never be as wretched as you were before your conversion, and He loved you totally then. Because God loved you so completely, you can be secure in your salvation.

Suggestions for Prayer

Confess those times you have taken for granted God’s love for you, then meditate on Romans 5:8.

For Further Study

Read Ephesians 3:14-19. How does the Holy Spirit help us to “know the love of Christ”?

Additional Resources