How can I be sure I belong to God? - Belonging - TouchPoints

1 John 2:3-5We can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.

Doubts about the reality of our relationship with Christ come from at least four sources: our failures, the world’s accusations, Satan’s whispers, and God’s Spirit. God sometimes allows the first three in order to keep us growing, humble, and aware of our complete dependence on him. But when God himself leads us to question our relationship with Christ, he may be interrupting our mere pretense of faith or warning us that we have strayed from him and need to come back. In any situation, our awareness of and concern over our relationship with Christ indicates that God is at work in our lives. If you find that you are growing in your obedience to God, you may be confident that your love for him is genuine. How cautiously confident are you about your love for God?

1 John 3:10We can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.

Our obedience to God reflects our love for him and our belief in him. Since we are human, we cannot obey God perfectly all the time. We stumble and sometimes fall even as we are making real progress in our life of faith. What God looks for is a desire to always please and obey him, and he asks for our best efforts to do so every day.