Christian confidence

In Tim Chester's new book, 'The Ordinary Hero', he suggests the following tests to see how much confidence we have before God (you'll notice the echoes of Romans 8):

• If you're angry for ill-defined reasons or often angry, it mat well be because you feel angry towards God (even if you don't think of it like that) because you view life as a contract in which God hasn't kept his side of the bargain.
• If you feel condemned by other people or judged by them, it may be because you feel condemned by God because you haven't embraced the wonderful truth that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• If you're indifferent towards people, it may be because you're indifferent towards God because you haven't had God's love poured out in your heart.
• If you're insecure, often worried about what people think, always keen to prove yourself, unwilling to let an argument go, then that's a good sign that you're desperate to prove yourself because you've not grasped God's grace to you: the no-condemnation of the gospel.

On the other hand [Chester continues]:

• If you're confident that God loves you, then you'll love other people.
• If you're confident that God's accepted you, then you'll accept other people.
• If you're confident that God died for you, then you'll lay down your life for other people.
• If you're confident that God loved you while you were still his enemy, then you'll not complain when other people let you down.
• If you're confident that God's gracious to you, then you'll be gracious to other people.

So, how confident are you?

If not very, then the remedy is to read Romans 8:31ff where you discover that since Christ is for us, no-one can ultimately be against us; that because we're justified by Jesus, justification can never be taken away from us (even by our own stupid behaviour!); because Christ died for us, no-one can condemn us; and so nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

He then has a wonderful quote from John Owen. But I'll save that for tomorrow (or Wednesday - I'm at a governance seminar in Brentwood all day tomorrow...).

The Ordinary Hero, Tim Chester, (IVP 2009).