Riff's Christian Journal

How Can You Tell?

So, you say you are a Christian. How do you know? You accepted Jesus as your Savior, you say. That doesn’t prove you are a Christian. There are many people who say they have done that but just because you have made some kind of a decision is not proof that you have really been born again. In 2nd Peter 1:10 we read,

“Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure.”

This is a stern warning to take a look at your life, believing that you are a Christian, and make sure, very sure, that you have been called of God and that He has brought you into His family.

Once a person becomes a Christian a life change begins to take place. With some it will be slow and gradual, and with others there will be a quick and a dramatic change in the way that they live. We just need to look at the verses right before the one we quoted above to see what should be seen in your life.

2nd Peter 1:5 – 8, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,  to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,  to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.  For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you see any of these signs in your life? If not, then there is every reason to question whether or not you have been born again. No one, who become a Christian, stays the same as they were before regeneration (being born again). A new person begins to appear and that new person now wants to be obedient to the Lord. You see, Jesus will not be a Savior to anyone who will not bow the knee to Him as Lord.

You will never become perfect in this life, as there will always be a battle between your old self and the new person that has been made alive in you, in your spirit. There should be a change in your language, in how you look at others and how you now see God.

You do not do this on your own. For one thing you can’t. You need the work of God in your life in order for this change to take place. In Philippians 2: 12 – 16 we read the following.

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Do all things without complaining and disputing,  that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,  holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.”

Once you become born again, God does not leave you on your own. In these verses we see that God is very much active in your growth as a Christian. He is constantly working in your life to make the changes that He wants to see in you. God will cause all kinds of events in your life, both good and bad, in order to cleanse you of your sinful ways and to remove from you that which has become common place in you that is not pleasing to Him. That is why, no matter what happens, you should become obedient to what God is doing so that you will shine as lights in a perverse and sinful world.

As lights you will be different from others. You will not talk like them, you find that you no longer have the same desires and interests that you had before, especially if they were the kind that is not pleasing to God. You should see that some of the things that used to be important in your life is no longer your driving desire. You should be seeing that you want, more and more, to be obedient to the Lord and to do what He wants and not what you want.

In short, you no longer belong to yourself and to Satan. You now belong to God and He will work in you both to will and to do what He wants. If that is not evident in your life, if there is no difference in how you are, how you live after having become a Christian, maybe you haven’t been born again after all.

Just because you make a decision or “accept” Jesus as your personal Savior does not guarantee that you are a Christian. Only if you have been called and made alive in the spirit by God, which does have the evidence of Repentance of your sins towards God and of having Faith in Jesus for unselfishly paying the penalty for your sins, and in your submission to Him as Lord, will there be any work or transformation of your life with God directing the change.

People who say they are a Christian, but there is no proof of that in their life, most likely have been deceived and are not Christians at all; and they are heading for Hell.

How about you? Have you made your call and election sure? If not, maybe now would be the time to do so. Why would you wait until you die before you find out? By then it will be too late.