I spent the major portion of my teenage years as an active member of the Boy Scouts. While I never achieved rank above Star, and that at age 17 or 18, I held most of the positions of leadership at one time or another. Starting with patrol treasurer, I worked my way up through patrol leader, troop quartermaster, senior patrol leader and junior assistant scoutmaster. Along the way, I frequently assisted our scoutmaster in chapels on campouts.
At about age 14, I decided I wanted to earn scouting’s God & Country Award. You realize I’m sure, that the requirements vary according to the scout’s religious preference. So, I got the booklet with instructions for Protestants. The scout arranges to meet with his pastor, priest, rabbi, or equivalent depending on his religion who tailors the booklet to their shared faith.
I attended Temple Baptist Church in Fullerton and the pastor then was Art Peters. As he looked through the booklet, he asked me something like, “Do you know for sure that you’re going to Heaven when you die?” My response was, “I think so.” Then I described the several times I had gone forward in services starting when I was nine. This was in Anaheim. Not long after that first experience, I began saying that I wanted to be a missionary. Because we moved a lot, several of these moves took place in those years between age nine and fourteen. I now vaguely recall two altar calls in those years, one at a rally in Long Beach and the other at Temple Baptist. Other than Sunday School, I was essentially on my own for discipleship. So my, “I think so”, was the best answer I could give Pastor Peters.
That’s when he gave me my first assignment. It was the Navigator’s memory packet titled, “Beginning with Christ.” It was a set of cards a bit smaller than business cards, each with a verse or two of scripture. They were “Lessons on Assurance”. Each of the five cards focused on a different need for assurance: salvation, answered prayer, victory, forgiveness, and guidance.
Number 1 in the packet was Assurance of Salvation, 1 John 5:11-12, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His son. He that hath the son hath life. He that hath not the son of God hath not life.” KJV (years before NASB, ESV, NIV, or many of the other modern translations came along).
This is the passage that did it for me. I no longer doubted my salvation. If I came close, I always came back to this passage, especially when I included the next verse. “These things I have written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:13
That first assignment from Pastor Peters is the only one I remember. Like many projects I started over the years, I never completed the God and Country Award in scouting. But I gained assurance of my salvation and a set of foundational scripture verses that have been an integral part of my life for 60 years and counting.
Here are the verses from the Navigators Beginning with Christ memory packet.
• Assurance of Salvation – 1 John 5:11-12
• Assurance of answered prayer – John 16:24
• Assurance of Victory – 1 Corinthians 10:13
• Assurance of Forgiveness – 1 John 1:9
• Assurance of Guidance -Proverbs 3:5-6
P.S. I wrote this from a hospital bed in October 2020 while I was awaiting open heart surgery. That surgery didn’t happen for another five years.