Day 26                      God’s kids,  the Devil’s kids - How to tell them apart?   

1 John 4:1-6

             Counterfeiting is a greater problem in our country than every before.  Last year the Secret Service confiscated 261 million dollars in counterfeit currency.  At a McDonalds three young men ordered a Big Mac Meal and paid for their food with a twenty dollar bill one after another.  The one thing in common,  they all made the money on their own computer,  with their own scanners and ink jet printers.   The Secret service admits that even though 261 million was confiscated,  many more millions still exist in circulation because the paper is easy to purchase and the copies are so good with the latest technology that the money often is in circulation a long time before it is detected as counterfeit.

         In like manner,  the devil delights in making his children look very similar to the children of God.  They are found in most churches and in positions of leadership.  They are “good” people.  They talk the talk, and they live good lives.  Without the correct definition,  it is difficult for many church people to discern the difference between a child of God and a child of the devil.  I John gives this as a definition. 

1 John 4:2  Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

         The difference is not in the knowledge of God. The difference is in the relationship with the Father.  A man who knows Jesus personally,  knows that He is God.  He has come in the flesh to pay for the sins of mankind,  and more specifically for me, for that man.  Christ died is history.  Christ died for me is salvation.

         My little brother used to have friends over for a meal all the time.  One boy in particular lived at our house more than at his own house.  Even though he ate the same food and sat at the same table,  he was not my father’s son.  He knew of my father,  but he did not have the relationship with my dad.  He could not address him as “dad.”  The difference is in the confession.  The difference is in the birth.  Have you truly been born again because you have received the death of Jesus Christ as payment for your sins?  Is your faith solely resting in Him or is it in your own goodness and works.  This is the “litmus test of Christianity.”

2 Corinthians 11:15  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

         His ministers are counterfeits of righteousness,  but the difference is “according to their works.”  Not just that they can not produce the works of the Holy Spirit,  but that they rely on their own works for their righteousness.

Romans 9:32  Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

DDL