Examine Your Faith

2 Corinthians 13:5: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!  Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”  It has been my observation that this verse, and the subject it raises, are seldom taught on or even mentioned today.  I think many Christians neglect spiritual self-examination because they have been told they should never question their salvation.  Some even go so far as to make it a sin to question your faith, once you have made a profession of it.  To do so is to question what God has done for you and can only result in needless doubts and fears.  But the kind of self-examination required of us here is not meant to create doubts, but to expose weakness and prevent self-deception.  It is wrong to question God’s love and His promise of eternal life.  But to examine whether or not we have exercised saving faith is another matter.  This is necessary to keep us from being deceived, and the most terrible deception of all is that concerning our eternal state.  It is the only way to distinguish between genuine faith and presumption.  We must honestly ask ourselves whether or not our lives display the fruits of faith.