You will sometimes doubt whether you are a Christian. You will be full of cares, and loaded with condemnation. In fact you will feel like you are no good at all. You find this scripture fits you perfectly:
Jeremiah 6:
29 The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
30 Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.
You love to repeat the Scripture, “There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” but as hard as you try, you know it does not apply to you.
These are the signs:
1. Outward formality in spiritual experience
2. Distaste for spiritual things
3. Bondage in service to God
4. Uncontrolled temper
5. Uncharitable spirit
6. Attitude of faultfinding
7. Lack of interest in God’s word
8. Lack of desire for private prayer
9. Little interest in bringing people to Christ and promoting spiritual awakening
10. Boredom with accounts of spiritual revivals
11. No delight in reading and hearing about successes in the mission field
12. Boredom towards every effort to reform and save humanity-good government, Christian education, providing for the poor
13. Loss of interest in spiritual conversation
14. Apathy toward fellowship with spiritual people
15. Loss of zeal for entire consecration. Entire sanctification is no longer intensely interesting
16. Lack of concern and absorbing interest in new converts
17. Uncharitable attitude toward people who claim to be converted (to pick at, criticise and judge)
18. The spirit of prayer is missing
19. Praying in self-condemnation, or like a convicted sinner
20. Praying almost exclusively for self and for friends regarded as parts of self
21. Absence from prayer meetings for insignificant reasons
22. Neglecting family prayer for slight reasons
23. Regards private prayer more as a duty than as a privilege
24. Longing for secular amusements
25. Spiritual blindness
26. Spiritual apathy, combined with alertness and sensitivity to the world
27. Disposed to gratify appetites and passions
28. A seared (sleeping) conscience in many areas
29. Loose moral standards
30. Fear of man
31. Particular about forms, ceremonies and nonessentials
32. Faultfinding about measures used to promote revivals
What To Do?
i. Remember where you have fallen from
ii. Take to heart your conviction about your true position
iii. Repent of your sins at once
iv. Don’t try to return merely by reforming your outside conduct
v. Don’t attempt to recommend yourself to God by unrepentant works or prayers
vi. Don’t fool yourself that you are in a justified state. Come as you are to Christ, owning up, taking all the shame and blame on yourself. Come at once, like a guilty, condemned sinner. Believe that despite your wanderings from God, He loves you still
THE NATURAL RESULT OF BEING REPROBATE:
a. Full of your own dead works
b. Full of your own feelings
c. Full of prejudice
d. Full of hatred
e. Full of mistakes
f. Lust fills the backslider
g. Full of your own words
h. Trials and temptations fill your life
i. Foolishness fills the backslider
j. Bloated with troubles
k. Drowned with cares
l. Confused
m. Full of anxiety
n. Dwell in disappointment
o. Full of a sense of loss
p. Burdened with crosses
q. Overcome with temper
r. Full of inconsistencies
s. Deluded and fall into fantasies about doctrine
t. In chains
u. Feel self-condemnation