Do you feel hungry for the word of God? Does the word of God (either written or preached) feel like food to your soul or something that you have to endure?

I was talking with a young lady and she was commenting on how she believes only a few in evangelical churches are truly saved. Now, note that she said she believes only a few are truly saved from the churches that are bible-believing like ours; not from the secular world. And I told her that I agree with her. I think she understood the demand that Jesus puts on those who are truly His.

One of those demands has to do with the word of God. Test yourself to see if you are truly saved… What part does God’s word have on your life? How is it molding and shaping your life daily? Do you get challenged by it, convicted by it, feel guilty because of it, and/or feel encouraged and alive because of it?

These are critical questions that are not optional but rather a test to see whether you are saved or not. Jesus makes it very clear that only those who respond and continue to respond appropriately to the word of God are truly saved.

In the parable of the four soils (path, rocky, thorny, good in Luke 8), the consistent theme is the word of God which is the seed. And depending on what happens to the seed, the quality of the soil is determined. And the only soil that was deemed fit for heaven was the good soil (1 out of 4!). And how do we know it was good soil? It bore fruit.

In practical terms, all those who ignored the word of God (path), who used it only for quick encouragements (rocky), who gave up on it when life got hard (thorny) have failed to attain their salvation. Only those who let the word of God take root, wrestled with, made some hard choices, progressively became obedient are proven to be good soil and thus belonging to God and heaven.

What about those who went to church and acted like Christians for years and years but now are no longer involved? And when you ask them, they would say, “Oh, I still believe in God. I’m just taking a break. I will get back to Him eventually.” They are playing with fire. I wouldn’t say definitely that they are not saved, but I would be greatly concerned as to whether they are genuinely saved. Who am I to judge? I’m not. I’m just letting the word of God, based on the parable of the soils, speak. The very reason why Jesus gave that parable is because He knew that not all people who were coming to see Him would be saved. Many will fall away as time passed. And they did. Out of thousands upon thousands who heard his sermons and saw his miracles, only 200 were gathered to pray after His death…

Satan will lie to you and tell you that just because you “accepted” Jesus years ago, you are still saved.

If you haven’t eaten the word (of God) for weeks and haven’t felt the hunger, the most logical thing to conclude is that you are dead…

PH