Examine Yourself - Part 2 of 6

A tree is known by its fruit.
So what does your fruit say? Let the Spirit examine your heart; let the word be your mirror. Have you truly repented? Have you truly believed? Has grace changed you or just made you comfortable. 

Grace is not permission to sin. Grace is power to live free from sin.
If you are truly saved you won't be perfect, but you will be transformed. You will stumble but you won't stay down; you will be tempted but you will fight back. If you sin you will hate it, confess it and turn from it. 

Are you more like Christ today than you were last year, last month, last week? If not, then stop pretending. Stop playing games with your eternity. Stop dancing at the edge of the fire and calling it grace. Hell is real and so is heaven, and eternity will not be decided by your emotions or your opinions. It will be decided by whether or not Jesus knows you. Many will say "Lord, Lord" but he will say "I never knew you." That verse ought to shake every soul; it ought to make you fall to your knees and cry out "God search me." Do you know Him or do you just know about Him?

There's a difference between information and transformation. You can memorize every verse in the Bible and still go to hell if those verses never became the sword that cut away your sin. Knowledge does not equal salvation. The Pharisees knew scripture, but they crucified the Savior. I'm not here to entertain you; I'm not here to pat you on the back and tell you you're okay. I'm here to warn you. I'm here to wake you up. I'm here to tell you if your life looks no different from the world, then you are not saved. You cannot walk in darkness and claim to live in the light. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot love sin and claim to love God.

Where is the fire in your soul; where is the passion for his name; where is the urgency to preach, to serve, to love, to forgive? Are you living for the applause of men, or the approval of God? Because you can't have both. There is no middle ground in the kingdom. Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive; and if you are not alive in Christ; if you are still living for yourself, then I say again... you are not saved. And that is not condemnation; that is mercy. That is God giving you another chance. That is the spirit calling you out of deception and into truth.

Then why do you hesitate? Why do you resist the spirit of God when He presses on your heart and reveals your sin? Why do you excuse your behavior. justify your lifestyle, and pretend that God understands your compromise. Let me tell you something... He understands. He understands obedience; He understands surrender; He understands the language of a broken and contrite heart. Don't confuse God's patience with his approval. Just because judgment hasn't fallen yet does not mean it never will. The clock is ticking. Eternity is approaching and far too many are asleep, lulled into complacency by a soft gospel that asks for nothing and promises everything. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel calls you to die; it calls you to pick up your cross; it calls you to renounce the world, to forsake your comfort, to walk by faith and not by sight. Have you done that, or have you simply added Jesus to your already comfortable life as an accessory... something to make you feel safe, not something to make you holy. You think you're saved because you have peace? Be careful there is a false peace that dulls the soul -- a counterfeit comfort... that keeps you asleep while the fire grows closer. Real peace comes after repentance. Real peace comes when the war between you and God is over. Real peace is the fruit of submission not the evidence of ignorance. Many walk in false assurance. They lean on a decision they made years ago... but there's been no transformation, no sanctification, no fruit. They say "Once saved always saved." But I ask...  were you ever saved at all? Because the saved walk with the Savior. The saved hunger for truth. The saved tremble at his word.

You can't just say a sinner's prayer and then live like hell and expect to land in heaven. That's not salvation... that's deception! This is not about scaring you, it's about saving you. It's not about guilt, it's about grace. Grace is not a pass to stay the same. Grace is power to change. If you have truly encountered the risen Christ, something inside you breaks. Your pride shatters, your plans collapse, and from those ruins rises a new creation born not of flesh but of spirit.

So I ask you again, where is the proof? Where is the trembling before a holy God? Where is the awe? Where is the reverence. Where is the fear of the Lord? We've traded holiness for hype, we've replaced repentance with relevancy, and the church is filled with people who clap and shout, but their hearts are far from God. You can't dance your way into heaven. You can't shout your way past judgment. You can't smile your way around the truth.

God is not impressed by your church attendance. He is not moved by your spiritual vocabulary. He wants your heart, He wants your life, He wants all of you and He won't share you with the world.

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