We were in Sunday school discussing how you could tell is someone really truly knows God or is just putting on a front. Something that is extremely hard to do...determine what is in someone's heart. One girl said she didn't know that we could tell just by looking at someone, that it would be after knowing the person for a while whether you saw inconsistencies in their life between what they say and what they do. I tend to lean towards that thought. Another girl said she thought you could tell by if the person was happy, because a person who is happy truly knows God but if a person doesn't know God and the joy of God in their heart would not be happy.
Is that true? I know many people who are not Christians (unfortunately) and they appear to be extremely happy. Some people are just happy people. I also know some people who are Christians and they are not happy all the time. Does that mean that they are not true Christians? I don't think so. I think just like anyone, Christians go through the roller coaster of life, including all the emotions that everyone feels. It's just that most will rely on God when things get rough and so they don't seem to struggle as much through the difficult times in their life.
What do you think? How can you know if someone is truly a Christian and knows God or if they just claim to know Him?
Blessings in Christ,
I don't think there is an easy way of knowing if someone is a Christian in his/her heart and partly I don't think it is our business either. I understand that it might be interesting sometimes but for the most part that is between the person and God. God knows, this we can be sure of.
ReplyDeleteI think the 'happy' theory can even be dangerous sometimes. I have a couple of Christian friends who seem to think that being happy is extremely important for a Christian so that unbelievers can see that we are happy. I don't buy that. Yes, I am happy for the most part but I am also sad, angry, bored, curious, well any feeling there is. Having a complete emotional life is part of being human regardless if you are Christian or not. I cannot see that god has ever said that these feelings are wrong. Yes, we should not let ourselves be consumed by our feelings but the feelings themselves are not wrong. We should work with our bad sides and not let anger, envy, hate take over but the intial feeling popping up is not wrong it is if we do nothing about feeling this way and we let our actions reflect this feeling. Actually feeling the feeling is human.
Sorry for the long comment!
Thank you for commenting Elin. No need to apologize :) I appreciate your thoughts!!
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