First of all, our assurance. If our salvation hinges on anything but the finished work of Christ on the cross, we are in trouble. Or, at best, we run the risk of being in trouble. If you and I have any part in maintaining our salvation, it will be difficult to live with much assurance. Hope, yes; assurance, no. Yet John wrote an entire epistle to assure a group of people, people he was not even around to observe, that they were in fact saved: These things I have written to you who believe in the