Is my faith authentic?

Check up on yourselves.
Are you really Christians?
Do you pass the test?
Do you feel Christ's presence and power more and more within you?
Or are you just pretending to be Christians when actually you aren't at all?
I hope you can agree that I have stood that test and truly belong to the Lord. I pray that you will live good lives, not because that will be a feather in our caps, proving that what we teach is right; no, for we want you to do right even if we ourselves are despised. Our responsibility is to encourage the right at all times, not to hope for evil. We are glad to be weak and despised if you are really strong. Our greatest wish and prayer is that you will become mature Christians. - 2 Corinthians 13:5-9 (Living Bible)

With the evolution of technology, it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate the real thing from a fake. From phishing to smishing to vishing to whaling, cyber email attacks can appear to be legitimate, but all have the same objective, to steal your personal information for criminal purposes. Satan is the master orchestrator of sin and deception. From the fruit in the Garden of Eden to the elaborate cybercrimes of today, Satan has but one objective, to deceive.

The name Satan means adversary. His basic nature is to be the enemy of God. As such, he will make things appear to be real that are not to keep people from the real thing. As the enemy of God, his primary target of deception is authentic saving faith, the only faith that will allow a person to enter heaven and spend eternity in God's presence. As with the deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden, he will twist God's Word to entice sin. He also uses false teachers that use the Bible and appear to be legitimate to further his master plan and keep as many people from authentic saving faith as he can.

With all of the deception of Satan, how can I know if my faith is authentic? As with counterfeit currency, the best way to identify the counterfeit is to study and know the authentic so well that you can identify the counterfeit when you see it. Over the next several weeks the blog posts will focus on the characteristics of authentic saving faith.

What are the characteristics of authentic Saving faith?
Love for God
Repentance from sin
Genuine humility
Devotion to God's glory
Continual prayer
Selfless love
Separation from the world
Spiritual growth
Obedient living
Hunger for God's Word
Transformed life

As Christ has a Gospel, Satan has a gospel too; the latter being a clever counterfeit of the former. So closely does the gospel of Satan resemble that which it parades; multitudes of the unsaved are deceived by it.- A. W. Pink

Be Encouraged to know the characteristics of authentic saving faith through the study of God's Word.

-Jeffrey Thornton