Possessors of the Faith Vs Professors of the Faith

I have been sick with sinus infection for the past two days. So, I am going to keep it short.

When you are a possessor of the faith God’s Word is perfect in your eyes. No need for duplicity, no need to find loopholes and you carefully examine the Scriptures with your heart and the goal is to submit to His Word. Christ becomes more precious to you than everything else and you are guided solely by His Word. You walk in the truth with a spirit of submission because your life is His to do what He wants with. His plan and goal for your life are what matters to you. You also understand His Word from His point of view because you know Him.  Over the years, you keep decreasing as if you are disappearing while He is getting bigger and bigger in your life. Hence I must decrease He must increase. If you want me to make it simple, you are a possessor of the faith and you are living true Christianity when you have taken Christ within.

The best way I can explain what a professor of the faith looks like is to give you an example.

I know a family who has been Christians for decades and decades. We are talking about thirty years and more. After all these years of bible reading, prayers, serving in the Church, going to the mission field etc they are no where close to possess Christ. They all have hard hearts; they lie to each and other people as easily as they breathe. There is a callousness of consciences that is hard to watch. There is a darkness of the soul that comes out in the things they do, that you cannot help wondering how on earth they have not noticed that unbelievers are better human being than them. They are still counting on God’s love to make it to heaven and the fact that they said the sinner’s prayer.

While this is one example of how this family is living a Christless Christianity, for some of us it is more subtle. However, we can recognize where we are if we do not recall at any point that Christ has increased in us while the self has decreased. If we have no recollection of having conquered the evil self chances are it did not happen. We still have bitterness, bad temper, greed, jealousies and all that is associated with the flesh are prevalent in our heart. Your life is self willed, you are uncommitted, and you are living with a spirit of disobedience. You fit the picture of those who are twice dead as mentioned in Jude.

Beloved, we should care whether we are possessors of the faith vs professors because it matters to God. May we learn to examine our hearts and not afraid of asking ourselves the hard questions now, so we can correct the course of our lives. When we die, we not only have to answer for those hard questions we have been avoiding, it will also be too late.