Confidence comes from knowing what God asks of us, and knowing that our aim is to live in conformity with God’s standard. Now surely this sounds like a recipe to trouble souls, rather than for calming the troubled soul. And yet John speaks with encouragement and assurance as he promises we know that we have come to know him. Where does he derive such assurance? The statement we know that we have come to know him is the first of many such statements offering assurance to the readers of the epistle