So my Bible Study Fellowship question asked:
What assurance do you have that Jesus has purchased you for God?

My lesson offered several biblical assurances that are laid up for me in God’s excellent Word (John 3:16-19, Romans 10:9, Ephesians 1:13; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, 2 Timothy 2:19). In addition to these, however, several other assurances came to mind which bore witness immediately to my soul of having been re-created in Christ. This began that day in the break room at Sears when I joyfully came to throw all of my hope for life and salvation on the effectual death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God. The philosophical Law of Causality states that “every change in nature is produced by some cause” and this is no where more evident than in the change that took place in me from that day forward – the cause being none other than He who changed my heart of stone into a heart of flesh and wrote his moral law on this heart so many years ago.

From that moment of conversion, I experienced an uplifting of my spirit and a sense of peace and well-being which sprang from having the wrestlings of my heart and my impotent efforts answered by Jesus’ finished work on the cross – He did it all [Ephesians 2:8-9] – achieving for me that which I had been unable to do on my own. I immediately sensed a release of all my strivings when I realized my God-given desire to please Him was fulfilled, not in my never-ending checklists and duties, but in his own Son. I find my place at the banquet because of the Beloved.

Other evidences?

I received a new and lasting affection toward God. From then on, I have had a bend toward the things of God. I am hungry, still, after more than 30 years, to move “further up and further in” as C.S. Lewis put it.

A spiritual sensitivity to my offenses against God has increased not decreased over the years. Conviction of sin, which targeted first only my behavioral sins, has expanded its sanctifying work in me by addressing also those outwardly-imperceptible sins of thought and motivation as the Holy Spirit continues to form the new man in me.

Scripture began to make sense to me (1 Corinthians 2:14). I’ve read it now seven times and it continues to teach me. Each time I take up the Book, I still find it speaks to my soul, shapes my thinking, and magnifies Yahweh.

I have a filial connection to the Body of Christ, the Church. I am bound to fellow believers in a way that transcends race and ethnicity, geo-political boundaries, and socio-economics. I am not only bound to those believers in my local church, but to those who claim the name of Christ in my city, country, and around the world. Watching the global news these days, 1 Corinthians 12:26 is played out many times over: If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. This connection and association with the Body transcends time as I look ahead to worshiping around the throne with believers from ages past, present, and future.  There is a unity of the Spirit which we recognize in each other that goes deeper often than the unity of many blood relations.

Lastly, I have a deep-seated soul-peace when I consider the security of my eternal destination. Until I take possession of it, I bear the seal of the Holy Spirit (as the above evidences attest to) and He is the guarantee of my inheritance to come. I no longer wonder and hope and fret over my place in eternity. I walk this world now as a stranger and wayfarer, but I am confidently making my sure way to the Celestial City.