Examine Yourselves
Examine Yourself
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified.
We are told in this scripture to examine and test ourselves to see if we really are in the faith. The question I must ask is how do I test myself? How can I know I am in the faith?
John 12:48 He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
The first thing I must realize is that I am going to be judged by the word of God in the last day. Therefore, if I am going to examine myself, I need to use the word of God as the standard by which I compare myself.
2 Thessalonians 1:8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we examine ourselves by the scriptures we need to make sure we have actually obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, there have been many changes added to or taken from the scriptures by men in regards to how to simply obey the gospel.
Galatians 1:9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
There are other gospels than the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Make sure you are not following another gospel than that of Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
When we examine ourselves we must be honest with ourselves. If we deceive ourselves we will never grow spiritually, because we will never face up to the spiritual weaknesses and sins that do exist in our lives. As best as we can we should strive to see ourselves the way God sees us. If we hold up the word of God to ourselves spiritually like a spiritual mirror hopefully we will see the sins that do exist in our life. Serious soul searching is something we should be doing often, if not daily. If we can see ourselves the way we really are then hopefully we will deal with the sins by repenting of them and continually be preparing to be judged by our God in the last day. We do not want to be disqualified because we have not truly obeyed the gospel or because we have not dealt with any sins standing between us and God.
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