How Can a Person Know They are a Child of God?

     Is everyone who claims to be a Christian actually redeemed and in a right relationship to God?  The answer is unfortunately, "No."  True Christians are certainly not perfect people but there are distinguishing characteristics that mark them.  St. Paul wrote, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (II Cor. 5:17)."  If a person is born of the Spirit, there is a difference between what their life is not and what it was before.  Those differences are reflected in the attitudes that the redeemed person shows every day, and in all circumstances of life--certainly not perfectly, but yet consistently. These attitudes are the fruits of the Spirit in the life of the believer. and In Galatians 5:22-24 we read, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

     Will the Christian from time to time transgress and fall into sin? Of course. We are sinful creatures and St. John wrote (I Jn. 1:8-10), "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." The difference between an unregenerated sinner and a child of God who sins is in how he or she deals with it.  The unregenerated sinner continues in the sin and the Christian seeks God's forgiveness and leaves the sin behind.  Proverbs 24:16 teaches us that, "the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity."
     The Mormons have quite a different take on evidences of being redeemed.  Doctrine and Covenants (one of the Mormon Holy Books) 9:8, 9a reads “But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me (God) if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings . . ."  It is incredible to think that the Mormons would take a subjective feeling as evidence of grace instead of the Spirit's witness to the new birth!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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