Armor of God part 5 (shield of faith part 2)

This is an examination of the examination in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
Why is it important to examine ourselves? Matthew 7:22-23, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” I for one want to make absolutely sure that I am not one of the many who think they are in the book of life and tragically find out in the end they are not. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Knowing you are approved unto God does not come by a feeling, it comes by knowing what the Word of God says. He has given us this perfect instruction manual and if we come to the end of our mortal life and find ourselves built upon sand when the instructions called for rock we will have only ourselves to blame.
So how does the Bible say we are to know we are truly a child of God? You know because you are a new man. Romans 6:1-6, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Is this to say we will never sin? No, 1 John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” There is a difference in committing a sin and living in or being a servant to your sin. Romans 6:12-13, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Jesus came and died for us, not because the laws of God were bad and needed to be abolished, but because in our present state of slavery to our flesh it was impossible to follow Gods law. When Jesus died and rose from the dead he gave us the free gift of the imputed righteousness of God. That is the covering of our sins by Gods grace and mercy. But when we sincerely repent of our sins and ask for the Holy Spirit to enter our lives we are not only given the imputed righteousness of God that saves our souls but we are also given the imparted righteousness of God to continually perfect us to his will. Recognizing this imparted righteousness is how we know we have been given the imputed. Romans 2:14, “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:” Romans 7:6, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:23-25, “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Romans 8:1-5, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”
So how then do you know you are walking in the spirit and not in the flesh? This brings me first of all the the verses in 1 John that I had trouble with 1 John 2:7-8, “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” I found in Romans 13:9-10, “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” The new commandment of love is the same as the old. It’s like the old hymn we used to sing “They shall know we are Christians by our love.” Even so WE shall know we are Christians by our love and we already established in the first part of neo-evangelicalism that love is not the same as flattering.
There is another way to know we are truly saved and that is by our fruit. Romans 6:21-23, “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Examine your fruit, do you bare the fruit of the flesh, Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Or the fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
In, closing a reminder, do not seek your salvation by these things but only seek to RECOGNIZE your salvation by these things. Romans 9:31-32, “But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;” Only by putting you faith in the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ can you walk by the spirit and leave your slavery to flesh behind you.