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Examine whether you are in the faith

by Job Anbalagan

Luke in his gospel speaks about a certain man who said to Jesus, "Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest". Jesus told him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head...." (Luke 9:57-58). As the disciples of our Lord Jesus and as His ministers, we are supposed to follow Him whithersoever He goes. The Lord will not be in a place where the people merely worship Him but do not heed His call for repentance. Today you may feel like enjoying His presence in a church service. But the Lord may not be there. It is only a deception. It may not be the Jesus of Nazareth in your midst. It may be "some other Jesus" in your midst who makes a debut only on Sundays. A Jesus who condones the sin of adultery! A Jesus who extracts your tithes and offerings but overlooks your sinful secret life!

If Jesus is in your midst or in your church service, you will weep over your sinful life; you will loathe your sinful life; you will be stripped of your prideful spirit.

If the Holy Spirit leads you to a nation where the gospel has not yet been preached to the multitudes there, you have to follow Him. As an apostle, you cannot minister to Jesus in a place which has already been evangelized.

The Jesus of Nazareth had no place to lay His head. Today, many ministers of the gospel who reportedly follow Christ lead luxurious lives without any concern for the poor saints in the Body of Christ. Though they preach the gospel to the thousands, they own movable and immovable assets either in their own names or in the names of their spouses or children. They may perform signs and wonders in the Name of Jesus Christ or prophesy in His Name. If they lead luxurious lives like the rich man in the Luke's gospel "who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day" without caring for the poor "Lazarus", where they would spend their eternity? Jesus did not disclose in this passage that the rich man was saved or not. This Bible passage does not speak about salvation at all. It only focuses on the selfishness of a certain rich man who did not care for the one who desired to be fed with the crumbs which fell from his table (Luke 16:19-31).

Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests. But Christ the King of glory, the King of Kings, had no place to lay His head. The people who reportedly follow Him own everything on this earth. Sadhu Sundar Singh, the apostle with bleeding feet from India, lived like Jesus in our midst. He was led by the Holy Spirit to visit many places in India and in foreign countries in the early 1900s. At Lake George, USA, he spoke in a meeting. In the front row at the meeting sat a small child of three and a half years. All through his address, this wee mite scarcely took her eyes from the Sadhu's face. When he sat down, the audience was almost electrified to hear the question asked in a clear childish treble, "Is he Jesus?" People saw Christ in the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh because he was leading a Christ-like life on this earth.

If the Jesus of Nazareth is with us, we would love His body, the universal Church also. Today, we, the Christians, are the most deceived people in this world. We presume that Christ is in us or in our midst and that we are ministering to Him. Paul in his epistle to Corinthians exhorts them, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. (2 Cor.13:5-6). We have to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith. We may attend the church services and worship Christ. We may give our tithes and offerings. We may also partake of some special church meetings. But the Jesus of Nazareth may not be in us or in our midst and we may be reprobates.