Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians 12:1-3

Recently with the Asbury Revivals going on, there was alot of discussion as to whether these were true revivals or not? Many Christians called these other Christians “fake” because they didn’t approve or like the way they were worshiping or conducting a service. Not to get off topic, but there is no Biblical commands how to conduct a revival, this can only be led by the Holy Spirit, which we seem to want to put inside a box

Anyway, the root of all these arguments and discussions comes down to one thing, are these people really saved or not? Now I’m certainly not going to try and play God and pretend I know who really is Born Again or not, in fact I believe there are true saved Christians in every denomination or sect, a true remnant of God, however that is not up to me to determine who is saved or not.

However Jesus did give us some criteria we can use to determine the authenticity of someone’s faith in Matthew 7. Jesus said “You should know them by their fruits “ (Matthew 7:16) What fruit is Christ talking about? Of coure the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5) The Apostle Paul said this “ 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23[g]gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law “

If we claim to be a Christian (a follower of Christ) then we should behave like a Christian. If someone claims to be Born Again and they are engaging in sinful and evil practices, then its logical we have to question the authenticity of their conversion. Now does that mean we should go around judging who is a true Christian or not, no that’s not our job, but we can have spiritual discernment of the Holy Spirit to know who to fellowship with or even follow

Now going back to our scriptures today , Paul makes a statement “Nobody can say Jesus Is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit” Interesting, another sign of discernment for us. If someone is declaring Jesus Is Lord, that is by the Holy Spirit. That is a sign of spiritual fruit, this person might still be working on their sanctification and might not be where you are at, but to truly declare Jesus Is Lord sets us apart from the world

So going back to the Asbury Revivals, among other things, Christians will complain about this specific denomination or this group because they don’t do A, B, and C, all I want to know is do they truly declare Jesus Is Lord? Do they affirm the death and resurrection of Christ? Let Jesus gather his sheep, and let the Holy Spirit do his work, Jesus Christ is Lord, Amen!