EXAMINING YOUR FAITH
Have you ever listened to someone else give their testimony of conversion to Christ and wondered, in light of all they experienced, whether your conversion is real? It is no light matter. If you have never truly been born again you cannot see and will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And so you examine yourself, comparing your own experience with the impressive testimony of whoever, and it seems you come up short. Or, perhaps you are on the other side of the evaluation and feel pretty good about yourself because your experience exceeds the one you have just heard. In fact, you find yourself questioning the genuineness of, whoever.
There is good reason to examine yourself to see if you are truly in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5). You know it is possible to be deceived. You know it is possible to imagine yourself to be something you are not. A true believer is sensitive to this possibility. A lost person really has no interest in examination. So, if you are interested in examining your profession of faith, you have reason to be hopeful.
But in your examination you must not compare yourself with others. This is dangerous. Wouldn’t it be disastrous to get to the end, stand before the judgment of Christ and be shocked that someone you thought you far exceeded in genuine Christianity was welcomed, and you were rejected? It could also happen that one whose verbal testimony you thought far exceeded yours, and stirred up doubt about yourself, is turned away and you are welcomed.
You must judge yourself by God’s standard. Do you honestly recognize that God owes you nothing but death and condemnation (Rom. 6:23)? Have you submitted yourself to God’s righteousness in the Lord Jesus (Rom. 10:3,4)? Have you surrendered your own efforts to attain God’s favor while at the same time turning away from all that would separate you from Him (Rom. 5:20-6:2)? Are you coming to God through the only One who is able to present you faultless (Jude 24; Heb. 7:25)?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to all the above, then you ought to also be seeing other indicators in your life that the Spirit of Christ is in you (Rom. 8:9). How about: a hunger for His Word (Acts 2:41; 1 Peter 2:1-3), a longing to do His will (1 John 2:15-17; Gal. 2:20), an increasing distaste for sinful pleasures (Rom. 12:1,2), a love for other believers (1 John 4:7,11), fruits of the Spirit increasing (Gal. 5:22,23), and increasing dependence upon Christ (John 15:5; Philip. 4:13)?
Is the faith of the Son of God at work in you?
