You feel the cold breeze of the fans surround you as the lights glaring above attempt to blind your eyes. You are sitting in the cold, wooden pew as the evangelist on stage eloquently delivers a message that has drowned this land for centuries. You have heard the language before. You have seen the movies before. All of it rings as a familiar noise in the corridor of your mind. The man with the microphone says the Name of which you have heard time and time again, perhaps since your youth. It is placed on billboards, t-shirts, movie titles, and is even a common swear word: Jesus.
As the man begins to end his sermon, he invites those who wish to invite this Man into their hearts to the front. Feeling awkward because your friends have invited you time and time again to know Jesus, or because you are a little guilty of the bad choices you made, you stand up and slowly walk to the front, facing the floor. Your heart is not racing, nor is your heart wrenching. Tears are not streaming down your face because of the love in which this Man has shown you. You think, "If this is true, at least I'm in." The speaker leads all those who responded to his call in a prayer, and you silently follow. At the end, the preacher says with a large, beaming smile on his face, "Praise God! You are saved now! When you die, you will go to heaven."
Does this sound familiar? This happens in churches every single weekend. My heart grieves so greatly for the souls who are deceived! More than those who have not heard of His famous Name (although, it still burns for them), or for those who purposefully reject Him, but for those who believe that they are saved and are not! Did you know that you can, with your whole heart, mind and soul, believe that you are saved and when death meets you face to face, you will burn in the lake of the wrath of God for eternity? Has that thought ever crossed your mind?
You must ask yourself the question, "Am I saved?" This is a very Biblical question. Let us explore the first Scripture.
Paul writes, "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you are disqualified." Quick background: Paul is writing to a church in the first century. He is writing to a church. This is one of the places that he church planted and saw the fire of God hit. He is writing to a group of people that we would assume are saved (we will develop what 'saved' means in a later part). They saw the raw power of God, heard the apostolic voice, and had a Biblical witness proving that Jesus is the Christ of God. We must ask why Paul, being provoked by the Holy Spirit, asked a church that he labored into for over a year if they were saved. We will not dissect this verse, but we must recognize the point that Paul is making, "You can think you are saved and are not."
Remember Matthew 7 and Luke 13? You can hear all of the sermons, see signs and wonders, know 'the stuff', rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, yet when the door of salvation shuts in this age, and still not be able to enter! How can this be? Consider this example: You are a zealous fan of Micheal Jordan. You know his professional history, bought all of the books about him, wear his jersey and have posters of himself in your room. You are then given the chance to meet him face to face! You run up to him and begin to talk to him. He looks at you and says, factually, "I do not know you." You shutter back, and reply, "Well, wait! I know this, this and this about you - as well as that and that!" He replies in honesty - and in fact, "I literally do not know you."
Have you considered that you could sit in a pew every single week yet Jesus does not know you? You may say, "The most important question to be asked of a man is do you know Jesus?" That is NOT true! The most important question is, "Does Jesus know you?"
Part 2 to come..
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