Hi everyone
I’m the wake of this past week I’ve been experiencing tremendously anxiety.Though I do feel better I’m still uncomfortable over fear of apostasy.
Feelings, in the Christian's life, should be made to follow, to be subject to, the mind and will. Only as you persist in anchoring yourself, your thought-life, to what your mind (and heart) knows of God's truth, no matter what you feel, will your feelings come into line with your mind and will. If you've trained yourself to react strongly to, and to be led by, what you feel, it will take a similar process of training of yourself, to become a man settled upon God's truth, unwavering, steadfast in his trust in it, regardless of what feelings may arise within him.
God moves us, empowers us, in this retraining as we submit ourselves constantly to Him. We don't have to rely upon our own weak, finite resources in being transformed.
But what I want to know is how do you know if you’re being tested and if you failed or passed a trial.
Every time you yield to temptation, or migrate away from submission to God, or succumb to being led by feelings, you are failing the test. But such failing is no surprise to God; He is not learning anything new about you; he has always known everything you will choose to do (or not do). Testing and trying - and failing - is to show
you where you are in your walk with God, to enable
you to see clearly the place in which you are with Him and the direction in which you're going spiritually. It isn't ever that God is discovering something about you.
You "pass the test" when you can see progress toward greater Christ-likeness in your living and character, when, increasingly, your desire is for God and to live in constant, joyful communion with Him. This is spiritual success.
in the wake of this previous week I’ve been tremendously tormented by intrusive thoughts but I’ve refused to sin or turn my back on the Lord,and continued to pray always and repent if I sin.Even in the moments I didn’t feel like repenting or wanting forgiveness I still asked for it and repented and never stopped crying out to God.
It's a start. Are you learning to stand upon God's word, to anchor yourself to it when your habit of intrusive, fearful thoughts afflict you?
But in the wake of this evening I’ve been feeling better but now I’m worried I’ve fallen away and am in a condemned state in the world because I’m afraid I didn’t pass a test if the experiences I’ve been experiencing this past week has indeed been a test or trial of faith.
Like I asked,how do I test myself and how can I know if I passed or didn’t pass a test?
In a sense, all of your life with God is a test that you are either passing and failing all the time. But God knows you aren't perfect. It's why He sent His Son to die on your behalf. He "remembers that we are dust," weak, needy, and apart from Him unable to please Him. He doesn't cover his mouth in shock and disgust when you sin; He's always known you would do all that you do, sending His Son to atone for all of your sin.
Paul the apostle admitted to this reality in his own life:
Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul had not attained, he was not perfect, but this didn't make him think he was out of God's family. Not at all. Instead, he forgot what was behind, he refused to dwell on it, and reached toward the things ahead of him, chiefly the "prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Paul wasn't living in constant dread he'd messed up and was now reprobate and un-born spiritually. Like a runner in a race, when he stumbled and fell, he didn't remain down, moaning and groaning, fearful he'd been disqualified, but jumped right back up, his eyes on the goal of finishing the race and the prize waiting at its end and
kept running.
2 Timothy 4:7-8
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Your fear is, ultimately, just a kind of selfishness. You are afraid for yourself; for your well-being; you want to protect yourself from the threat you see God to be. Your eyes aren't fixed on the prize of Christ, of "winning" him, but on yourself. And so long as this is so, Christ's glory, and love, and goodness, are obscured, hidden away from you by your inordinate self-concern. This is why God refuses fear as a motive for Christian living. Fear is not God-focused, not really, but Self-focused.
We keep an eye on the dangerous bear only so far as it enables us to keep safe from it, but we don't love the bear, we don't desire joyful communion with it. Christians who operate with God on the basis of fear are focused on Him as a "dangerous bear," looking to Him as a terrible threat, rather than as the loving, faithful Heavenly Father that He is. It's assumed that since the believer frightened of God is occupied with Him - deeply negative though that occupation is - that they are doing what is right. Surely, keeping your eyes on God is a good thing, even if it is because you're terrified of Him. But this isn't what the apostle John, the greatest contributor to the New Testament, wrote:
1 John 4:18-19
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
Paul the apostle wrote something similar:
Romans 8:15
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
When you see God properly, as the good Heavenly Father to you that He is, fear will begin to dissolve and joy and love will take its place.
