If you say you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation but do not care about His principles to follow them, you are lying.
If you say you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and are defensive of your sin against His Word, then you are lying.
When we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ we love Him and all that He says in His Word the Bible.
When we have believed on Him and love Him we cannot get enough of His Word because we want to obey Him. Our love for Him leads us to honor every Word He gave, every utterance from the Holy Spirit is the most important thing to us than anything and anyone else.
Belief in Christ is not merely a mental exercise to feel spiritual. Authentic belief drives us to desire His Word, obey what we read and speak it to others.
John 14:15-17
15 “If you love Me, you WILL keep My commandments.
The Holy Spirit
16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; 17 the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you.”
Notice in verse 15 God says “you WILL keep my commandments.” If someone is hostile toward the commandments of God, then they do not belong to Him.
No one who has the Holy Spirit will be comfortable with remaining hostile and angry as a lifestyle. No one who has the Holy Spirit can be unkind or manipulative, mocking or demeaning to anyone as a lifestyle.
Sadly over the years, I have encountered many people who have attended church gatherings all their lives but remained unchanged in the way they think and the way they live. Some have dropped off all the blatantly sinful acts they used to do, or never did and are proud they were better than others, however, many have maintained their selfish, mean spirited, and mocking mentality as though they dropped the things people could see and prove but kept what is unseen and unprovable. Many people who say they are “Christians” avoided the big sins out of fear of getting in trouble with authorities or others but remained angry, hostile, and mean as though the inner heart didn’t matter, only what people can see. They were very clever of using “plausible deniability” and “pretending” to be godly on the outside while remaining hateful to anyone who might challenge them to take a good look at their heart, asking God to change that heart.
Matthew 23:26-28 “…26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well. 27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to be righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
No one who is born again maintains their sinful heart attitude when they have the Holy Spirit living in them. The first thing to be cleansed is the heart, which leads to holy living and obedience to Christ. It is the mentality that is cleansed first which results in the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
An angry spirit that is hostile to the Word of God cannot be born again. Anyone who has the Holy Spirit will be ashamed when a brother or sister confronts them with sin in their lives. They not only are ashamed they want the Holy Spirit to cleanse them from that sin. They are actually appreciative when a spiritual sibling comes to help them learn of their flaw and gently and kindly support them as they make the needed change in their life.
When someone rages at us when we confront their sin is the very big clue that they do not have the Holy Spirit.
Proverbs 11:3
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the perversity of the faithless destroys them.
Proverbs 14:29
“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”
James 1:20
For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Proverbs 14:17 ESV / 51 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful
A man of quick temper acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated.
God will not cleanse a resistant and prideful heart. Those who remain in their anger and even increase their hateful antics are proving they never trusted Christ, they were merely putting on a show in front of others. These people are even capable of knowing the Bible, or at least the parts they like, to sound spiritual, but they lack the discernment, and ability to care whether or not they walk in love and obedience.
No one who is born again rages at a fellow believer for attempting to correct a wrong through discussion. The manipulative tactic of raging and blaming the victim is devilish and full of fleshly anger. Anyone who defends those who walk disobediently is an enabler, fostering more pride in the one who needs the cleansing of Christ.
Anyone who laughs at or mocks the Holy Spirit is not born again. No born-again believer would ever speak against the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 12:30-32 “30 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come.”
I have witnessed personally people who would mock me when I would mention that we must trust Christ for salvation and then continue to trust Him in the Holy Spirit after salvation. The mockers thought it was silly that I would bring up the Holy Spirit and depend on Him. The only thing I could surmise is that these people who said they were Christians have never experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit or they would have been in agreement and even enjoyed that we agreed.
We must stop assuming someone is a Christian merely because they say so! We must look at the fruit, the attitude and even the continual actions that prove whether or not they are walking in the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23
“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.”
And, their treatment of the brethren, do they treat all born-again believers with love or do they have favorites they treat well and others they abuse emotionally?
1 John 3:13-15 “…13 So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer.…”
Do not be discouraged by the many pretenders you encounter, we are living in the last days of apostasy and there will be far more pretenders than authentic born-again believers.
