05/16/2024 – The Self Exam of Faith
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. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.
Some of the most difficult and stressful situations are the tests that we face in life. Yet God allows them and even led His Son to the desert to be tested because these tests can be a blessing. They can prepare us for victory. This is why God commands us to count it all joy when we face different trials. God allows and even commands tests in our lives, and none more explicitly than our spiritual self-assessment.
This is the first and defining test – what defines every victory, every outcome in life is not the size of your enemy or your own strength or ability…what defines every outcome in your life is the measure of your faith.There is no guessing with God. He wants us to be sure and to be right.
We tend to overestimate our own ability and to underestimate the value of the gifts we have received from God – particularly our faith. The determining factor in your life is the measure of faith that God has given you. How much faith have you received from God? The Bible says that He has given each of us a measure of faith. The reason we are alive and the reason we are in Christ is because God has gifted each of us with a particular measure of faith. He commands that we examine ourselves to make sure we are in the faith of Jesus Christ, and that the standard by which we think of ourselves is by this measure of faith.