Are you sure?

Below is an outline from our last CrossCurrent meeting with the main points as well as the scriptures and quotes I referenced. I encourage each of you to read through the outline and take some time to meditate on the scriptures and then consider your own calling. Eternity is at stake and the Lord wants us to be sure of our salvation. If you aren't a Christian, please take this opportunity to repent, confess your sins and place all of your hope and confidence in Christ Jesus for salvation. If you are a Christian - please take the opportunity to make your calling sure and zealously pursue a close, personal relationship with Jesus.

2 Peter 1:10-12 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 12 Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.

Why we do what we do matters to make sure our salvation is real

1. We need to be sure our salvation is real – because Eternity is at stake
Jesus said in Revelation 3:11; 14-16 “I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown…. 'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

It is not my aim to introduce doubts and fears into your mind; no, but I do hope self-examination may help drive them away. It is not security but false security which we would kill; not confidence, but false confidence, which we would overthrow; not peace, but false peace, which we would destroy” – Charles H. Spurgeon

2. Knowledge alone is not enough – God wants knowledge from the heart
“Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so most fully when we treasure him, desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let goods and kindred go and display his love to the poor and the lost.” – John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God

“Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity. In fact, it emphasizes it. The worse we realize we are, the greater we realize God’s grace is.” – Randy Alcorn

“A person who has no taste for the enjoyment of Christ will not go to heaven. “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Cor. 16:22). “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). … Loving Jesus, not just “deciding” for him or “being committed to him” or affirming all the right doctrines about him, is the mark of a true child of God. Jesus said, “If God were your Father, you would love me” (John 8:42)” – John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God

3. Actions alone are not enough – God wants actions from the heart
“Oh, how easy it is to think we are what we ought to be when the emotions are made peripheral. Mere thoughts and mere deeds are manageable by the carnal religious mind. But the emotions—they are the (weathervane) of the heart. Nothing shows the direction of the deep winds of the soul like the demand for radical, sin-destroying, Christ-exalting joy in God.” – John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God

Matthew 15:8 This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

Why we do what we do matters to make sure our salvation is real

4. God wants your heart – because He wants to give you eternal life
“The fact that there is a struggle with sin, and a sense of grief because of sin is good. Unbeleivers have no such struggles or griefs. They may disappoint themselves for not living up to their own standards or to the standard of someone they respect. But they do not agonize over being unholy before God – a God who is holy and calls them to holiness. As A.W. Pink explained, “It is not the absence of sin but the grieving over it which distinguishes the child of God from empty professors [of faith]” – Donald Whitney

Where do you find yourself? Which category are you in?:
· Those who may not be Christians but think they are
· Those who are not Christians and are faking it
· Those who are not Christians and know it
· Those who are Christians but are not living like it
· Those who are Christians and living like it but doubt their salvation
· Those who are Christians living like it and confident in it