How to know you are a child of God..
How can I really know that I am a child of God in 2011? Whenever you are buying a used car, giving to a charity or making a financial investment you do not want to be deceived. But there is one worse thing than being deceived and that is being deceived by ones own self. The Pharisees or religious leaders in Jesus time thought they were the children of God, but John the Baptist called them a ‘brood of vipers’ Matt 3:7; and Jesus called them the children of the devil – John 8:44. The Apostle John wrote in his first letter: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life – 1 John 5:13. Seven times in his letter John used the phrase ‘born of God’; and when you summarize these statements, they describe the birthmarks of the true child of God. When you are a child of God, ‘born of God’, you don’t practice sin: No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God – 1 John 3:9. What does this mean? Certainly, Christians have the ability to sin, but the point John is making is that Christians don’t have the habitual desire to sin. God has planted His divine nature (“God’s seed”) within us, and we’ve acquired new ambitions and new appetites. Paul puts it this way in 2 Cor – Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new – 5:17. Christians aren’t sinless, and we won’t be until we see Christ; but we do sin less…and less….and less. Christians are tempted, but it isn’t a sin to be tempted – Jesus was tempted and He was sinless. Make sure of your salvation, call upon God and truly surrender your heart, confess your sin before Him and He will place within you a new nature and the power of sin will no longer rule over your life. Make 2011, a year of blessed assurance! Don’t be deceived, do not settle for anything less than a newness of life!