Examine Yourselves

2 Corinthains 13:5
"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!"

Does this verse bring perplexity? Should we not be confident in our salvation? We are told to have faith and do away with doubt, in other passages of Scripture, and the work of bringing doubt of our security in Christ is usually the enemy's work. But this passage tells us to examine ourselves and test ourselves, to see what? Whether we are in the faith. I find that there is a fragile balance that each believer must keep. It is the balance of humility and confidence. It is the same reason we are told that the fear of God is the beginning of understanding, but also that love casts out that fear. God can be all powerful Judge. The object of our fear and awe, but he can also be at the exact same time merciful, loving Father. Jesus told us to approach Him as a father, and when Jesus died on the cross, the veil that kept us from approaching boldly was torn in half. We need to understand that being bold and being humble can happen at the same time. Our assumption is that if someone is bold, they are not humble. It brings to mind the story of Esther. She was told to enter in before the king. She did so boldy, but also humbly. She did not do it because she thought herself so important as to be above the rules, but rather because she loved her people. She did not enter with an attitude of "I deserve to be here" but rather with the attitude of "If only by the grace of the king, I will approach." Therefore, Christian, we must enter into God's presence boldly, covered in blood of Christ and right in God's eyes, but also humbly, understanding that it is only by the grace of God that we stand.

How are we to test our faith, one may ask. God brings testing upon us, as James writes, through trials. When a tempest rises, the way in which we react can both qualify us and also disqualify us as genuinely Christ's. I believe that we test our own faith not on our own, but by the reading and devotion to God's Word. We are told in Hebrews that the Word of God is like a physician's knife that cuts us deep. I believe that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. As we read God's word, we find sin in our lives, because through the Word of God is the knowledge of sin, and the Holy Spirit begins his delicate work on our hearts. We are told that the Holy Spirit is the seal on us that marks us as His. So, when the Holy Spirit comes and convicts us of sin, we can be sure that we are His. When, as we read His Word, God reveals to us the sin and bleak state of our hearts, we can be certain that He disciplines those that are His children. We must look upon our situation both with confidence and humility. The enemy would love to have us paralyzed in fear that we are not His. We can be certain that we are, as long as we are in pursuit of those things to which He has called us to in His Word.

 Some warnings: the Bible says that the Word can fall upon weedy ground. These weeds grow with the faith and eventually choke it out. When we are told to examine our faith, we need to seriously think about the sin that we allow to rule in our lives. Although many struggle with sin, we must be sure that we are taking drastic measures to cut the weeds out. A sign of one who is not in the faith is one who allows sin to rule in their life, and this does not always appear as the one living in open sin, but sometimes in the one who plays the victim and has yet to take the measure that Christ has told to cut sin out of his life. Test yourselves.