An Evaluation of a Christian: Where do you Stand?

The book of 1 John describes how we can evaluate the real condition of our lives.  Deception is a powerful force, and Satan is the master deceiver who has caused many to fall under his influence.  As Christians, we are saved by grace, and we are expected to live in a new way – in relation to God and to each other.  Read the following Scriptures, and examine your life as we are in this holiday season.  Has your life been transformed by the Holy Spirit, or are you still living the life you did before accepting Christ?

1.  This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.  (1 John 1:5)
2. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. (1 John 1:6)
3. And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments.  If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. (1 John 2:3-4)
4. This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.     (1 John 3:11)  But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again.  One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses? “Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
5.  If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness.  Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.
6. Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.  So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.
7.  If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

These Scriptures may seem harsh to us, but if we embrace the truth, we will be transformed.  Jesus’ death on the cross paid the price for our sin.  His resurrection broke the power of sin and death.  In light of the power of the cross and resurrection, why would we to accept a gospel that does not transform our lives and liberate us from sin? 
As we near Christmas, and the start of a new year, reflect on these passages and ask yourself – “Am I living a new life in Christ or am I living the life I had before which is of this world?”  We must examine our life because a life unexamined is a life wasted.