“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless you fail the test.” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭13:5‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Do you ever find yourself in a place after some amount of time has gone by, and you wonder how in the world you got there? Or, where did all that time go? Put this in the context of our faith, but with a bit of a twist. Have you ever found yourself in a place in your faith walk where you know you had been walking with the Lord and things were good, but it seems now that all of a sudden something is off, or you’re in a rut? Man, those times suck, don’t they? Well, the reassuring news is, you are definitely not alone in that. Other people, and specifically other believers, experience this kind of thing with some regularity. Some might disagree that that is true (and you notice I’ve not provided you actual trends there), but we know it has to be true because we are people and it’s a seemingly natural part of our lives to experience the highs and lows. The peaks and valleys, if you will. If we want to take this to another level, do you ever wonder exactly where you are with your faith? Do you question what you believe? Do you feel like you believe at all?

The interesting, and probably freeing, thing about the expectations that Scripture lays out for us relative to this questioning of ourselves and of our faith is that we are to test ourselves, and daily if necessary. Examine what’s going on in your life in the light of Scripture and see if you’re walking with Him. That’s not always a seemingly “black and white” answer, but I do think that Scripture offers sufficient counsel there to allow us to identify the problem and seek the Solution for it. In addition, we know that the message of the Gospel of Christ is repentance. And here’s the thing—you don’t just repent once in your life and that’s it. Do you know how badly we’d feel like we had blown it if that were the case? Our call to repentance is a daily thing. Maybe not all the time, but more often than not. Daily we must be geared towards repentance of the things that are not of Christ, and sometimes it’s a daily thing to examine just where we on on the journey.

Don’t view this as a negative thing, as if you should be so “fixed up” or a better Christian and shouldn’t have to subject yourself to this reality check so frequently. It is good to align and realign and realign again ourselves with the heart of Christ.

And if that is a daily thing until the day we leave this earth, so be it, and it will be worth it.

David Henderson
Student Pastor