BETWEEN TWO CITIES

Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaching in Westminster Chapel, London (1899 – 1981)

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London. His preaching and writing have been a great inspiration to me over the years. I read his daily devotional, Walking with God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotional Selections each day on my Amazon Kindle. I have written about Martyn Lloyd-Jones twice previously on this blog: Justification and Sanctification: Martyn Lloyd-Jones Explains the Difference and A Morning Affirmation – Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

On November 28, 29 and 30 in his daily devotional, Dr. Lloyd-Jones provides ten tests “that you can apply to know for certain that you know the love of God to you,” or ten tests to know you are a Christian. He begins with 1 John 4:16:

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

1 John 4:1 (English Standard Version) [Dr. Lloyd-Jones uses the King James Version in his devotional]

Here are the ten tests:

I shall suggest to you ten tests that you can apply to yourself to know for certain that you know the love of God to you.

            Here is the first. It is a loss and absence of the sense that God is against us. The natural man always feels that God is against him. He would be very glad if he could wake up and read that some bishop or other had proved that God never existed; he would be ready to believe that. The newspapers give publicity to anything that denies the faith; they know the public palate. That is why the natural man is at enmity against God; he feels God is against him. That is why when anything goes wrong he says, “Why does God allow this?” And when men and women are in a state of being antagonistic toward God, then, of course, they cannot love God. So one of the first tests, and I am starting with the lowest, is that we have lost that feeling that God is against us.

            Second, there is a loss of the fear of God, while a sense of awe remains. Let us approach Him “with reverence and godly fear,” writes the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (12:28). John is going to elaborate on that; that is the rest of the fourth chapter of 1 John. We lose that craven fear of God, but oh, what a reverence remains.

            Third, there is a feeling and a sense that God is for us and that God loves us. Now I put it like that quite deliberately because it is so very true to experience. I have lost the sense that God is against me, and I begin to have a feeling and sense that God is for me, that God is kind to me, that He is concerned about me, and that He truly loves me.

            Fourth, I have a sense of sins forgiven. I do not understand it, but I am aware of it. I know that I have sinned; “my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3), as David says. I remember my sins, and yet the moment I pray, I know my sins are forgiven. I cannot understand it, I do not know how God does it, but I know He does it, and that my sins are forgiven.

            A sense of sins forgiven leads me to the fifth test: a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving to God. No one can believe that God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on the cross without feeling a sense of praise and thanksgiving. Think of Saul of Tarsus there on the road to Damascus. The moment he saw and understood something of what had happened to him, he said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). That is, what can I do to repay You—how can I show my gratitude? Do you feel a sense of gratitude? Do you want to praise God? A sense of gratitude and a desire to praise is further proof of the knowledge of God.

            Then sixth, there is an increasing hatred of sin. I sometimes think there is no better proof of a knowledge of God and knowledge of the love of God than that. You know, if you hate sin, you are like God, for God hates it and abominates it. We are told that He cannot look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13); therefore, whatever your feelings may or may not be, if you have an increasing hatred of sin, it is because the love of God is in you—God is in you. No man hates sin apart from God.

            Seventh, there is a desire to please God and to live a good life because of what He has done for us. The realization of His love should make us not only hate sin, but also desire to live a holy, godly life. If you do desire this, you love God, because our Lord said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John 14:21).

            Eighth, we have a desire to know Him better and to draw closer to Him. Do you want to know God better? Is it one of the greatest ambitions of your life to draw closer to Him, that your relationship to Him may be more intimate? If you have within you the faintest desire to know God better and are doing something about it, I say you love God.

            I will put the ninth point negatively, and yet it may be the most important of all. I am referring to a conscious regret that our love to Him is so poor, along with a desire to love Him more. If you are unhappy at the thought that you do not love God as you ought to, that is a wonderful proof that you love Him.

            My last test is that we have a delight in hearing these things and in hearing about Him. That is one of the best tests. There are certain people in the world—alas, there are many—who find all that we have been saying utterly boring; all that we have been saying would be strange to them. Such people are spiritually dead; they know nothing about this. So whatever the state of your emotions may be, if you can tell me quite honestly that you enjoy listening to these things and hearing about them, if you can say that there is something about them that makes things different, then I say that you know the love that God has for you.

Walking with God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotional Selections November 28, 29, and 30 selections.