2 Corinthians 13:5-6 ESV
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.”
Permissive or Strict?
Many people these days see love as permissiveness, and they
see strictness as meanness, but not everyone who is strict is mean. But, what
most people don’t seem to realize is that permissiveness is pure meanness, for
it has no regard for the harm that will come upon the people who become permissive
or for the people they sin against.
I have also noticed that those who are permissive are
usually well liked or idolized, and people are generally drawn to them, while
those regarded as strict are usually avoided, not well liked, and don’t have
many friends. There are exceptions to this, though, I know.
So, if you are one who is speaking the truth in love,
telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, most likely
you will not be well liked, and people will not want to be with you, and they
may even speak evil against you, thinking you to be harsh and unloving.
And, this is largely because our church culture has promoted
Christianity as something fun and entertaining, light and fluffy, comfortable
and easy going, non-judgmental, and non-confrontive. So, they cater to the
ungodly so as not to offend them with the truth.
Thus, they also dilute and alter the truth to make it more
appealing to human flesh. So, they teach faith in Jesus as a mere confession or
acknowledgment of Christ and of what he did for us on that cross, or as words
repeated after someone in a one-time prayer.
And, change of lifestyle, of thinking, or of behaving is not
required by them. In some cases, it is recommended, and in others it is even
discouraged. For, many of them see repentance, walks of obedience, and
surrender to Jesus Christ as “works-based salvation,” and thus they believe
they are exempt from them.
And, since this is the foundation many people are receiving,
there are many false professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
What’s the Test?
So, what is this test? How can we be sure of our salvation
and of our eternal life with God? If we are to test ourselves, we need to have
something to measure ourselves against. We do! It is the New Testament of the
Bible, but it is Scripture taken in context, not out from the context in which
it sits.
So, part of this test has to be to test what we have always
been taught or what we believe against the Scriptures, in context, to see if
what we believe is true or false. So, what are some key salvation Scriptures
that are most often used to teach the gospel?
Eph 2:8-9 is one. It teaches we are saved by grace, through
faith, and this not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works lest anyone
should boast. So, what most people teach here is some obscure faith in contrast
to any requirements for repentance, obedience, or submission to Christ.
But, is that what this is teaching? No, it isn’t. Verse 10
says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
And, then we read in Ephesians 4 that we are not supposed to
live like we did before we believed in Jesus, for the way we should have
learned the truth which is in Jesus is that we are to die to our old way of
living, to be renewed in our thinking, and we are to put on Christ and his
righteousness.
So, while it is true that our good works, done in our own
flesh, can do nothing to earn or to deserve us salvation from sin, it is also
true that we are saved to good works done in the Spirit which we are to walk
in. And, we are to die to our old lives, and now live the lives God had planned
for us.
Also, in Romans 6 we learn that we are slaves to the one we
obey, either sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to
righteousness and to sanctification, and its end, eternal life. And, in Romans
8 we read that if we walk (in practice) according to the flesh, we will die in
our sins, but if by the Spirit we are putting to death the deeds of the flesh,
then we will live.
So, when people quote Romans 10:9-10 as the essence of the
gospel, it is missing several critical elements of the gospel, such as repentance,
obedience, and submission to Christ as Lord.
For, taken out of context, it is interpreted to say you can
acknowledge faith in Jesus, make a public confession of him as Lord, and you
can be saved without repentance, obedience, or submission to Christ, which is
not biblical.
Test Yourselves
So, not only do you need to go through the salvation
Scriptures you learned and to read them in context (of the whole Bible book),
and not only should you compare Scripture with Scripture, but you need to test
your own life against those teachings of Scripture to see if your life adds up
to one who is saved and who has eternal life with God.
For, we aren’t saved by a mere confession of faith or by a
mere confession of Christ as Lord. For genuine faith in Jesus Christ results in
changed hearts, minds, and behaviors, of the Spirit of God. And, this isn’t
optional. We aren’t “saved” and then we get to choose how we live from then
forward.
The essence of the gospel is this. Jesus died that we might
die with him to sin and live with him to his righteousness. He died that we
might no longer live for ourselves but for him who gave his life up for us.
And, in his death he gave his life blood for us to buy us back for God that we
would now be God’s possession and that we might now honor God with our lives.
Also, if we claim that we are Christians or that we are
saved from our sins or that we have fellowship with God but we continue living
in sin, as our practice, then Scripture teaches we are liars who don’t live by
the truth. And, they teach that we don’t have eternal life with God but a
fearful expectation of judgment.
So, we need to examine our lives against these Scriptures.
If we are still living for sin, walking in the ways of the flesh, and not
according to the Spirit, then we will die in our sins, because we refused to
die to our sins.
[Rom. 6:1-23; Rom. 8:1-17; Gal. 5:16-21; Gal. 6:7-8; Rom.
2:6-8; 2 Co. 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:24; 1 Co. 6:19-20; 2 Co. 5:15, 21; 1 Jn. 1:5-9; 1
Jn. 2:3-6]
For
Our Nation
An
Original Work / September 11, 2012
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: we’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
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