Hi Gino, I really enjoyed your post “examine and prove” and I agree with what you said wholeheartedly.
It made me think of a line from the movie “Young Guns” where Emilio Estevez played Billy the Kid and he said one thing to the effect of (paraphrasing) - you have to keep testing yourself to see if you are still the fastest (at drawing a gun)
Now we all know from folklore that Billy the Kid was the fastest gun in the west, but this portrays him as constantly being aware that he could grow slow and needed to keep practicing his gunslinging or “testing himself”
And that is what I drew out of your post as well, that we are to constantly judge ourselves and test ourselves in the faith if we proclaim ourselves to be Christians.
We do find rest in Jesus and peace for our souls, but in order to continue to effectively practice our Christianity even though we are secure and sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption we should not “rest” in our faith but continue to “test” ourselves in our faith so that we don’t lose that first love and go back to behaving like the world. Good post brother!
Blessings from your brother in ChristDerrick Drew