Why Performance Assessment is Necessary in Christian Churches

Some people may call me a works salvation preacher and holding a skeleton key for insisting that I say performance assessment is necessary. But why do I insist on doing a performance assessment?  Jesus Christ does not merely save by His grace and by ourselves, He also sanctifies the person and faith has Christ's work in it.  So because salvation is the work of God, therefore it would be very impossible for a Christian to have no change whatsoever.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:11 with the words, "And such were some of you..." after he had pointed out how the unrighteous cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  So it's very demonic to preach that a homosexual can stay a homosexual after they are saved or any form of lost sinner to continue in their kind of lifestyle.  Christianity is not merely a change of religion like how a Hindu becomes a Buddhist or a Buddhist becomes a Roman Catholic- no it is not.  Yes I have my religion as a Christian but I did not just merely change religion, I experienced spiritual rebirth (John 3:3-5).  And I had just listened to the video "Revival's Golden Key" on Youtube as well.

The problem today is that easy believism has already attacked various Christian assembles and has started to preach a watered down message and even believes that a person can accept Christ and then later sin all they want and still enter Heaven.  That's not the real message.  On the other hand, Gospel truth is specific that salvation is not by works yet redeems the person to good works (Ephesians 2:8-10).  In fact God's grace is supposed to do an internal to external reformation from a life of sin to a life of good works (Philippians 2:13, Titus 2:11-15).  James 2:18 warns that faith without works is dead, that is not a faith plus works salvation but rather, true and living faith results to works as a result of salvation.  Historic Bible preaching like Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards were definitely against the Antinomian message of "after you are saved, you can sin all you want."  In the Bible reading through the life of Paul, what do we see people get rid of their idols, sin shunned and it was not a sin all you want, no when a person gets saved their attitude about sin changes all the more.  They've come to Christ fed up with sin, they want to get rid of it and realize no matter how much good they do, they fall short of God's glory.

So why should our pastors assess performance among church members?  There are wolves among the flock, there are tares among the wheat, there are bad fruits among the good fruits, the foolish virgins from the wise virgins to which leads to the truth of true and false conversions.  Once again preachers like Paul Washer and John Macarthur DO NOT teach works salvation as assessed by their examination that true believers will depart from sinful lifestyles though they may stumble.  Most churches fail to assess their members.  In America alone, the problem as John Macarthur pointed out in some of his lectures was that Christians are becoming accommodating to false converts.  It's like John Macarthur's experience in page 73 of "The Gospel According to Jesus" about his meeting with a pastor who was accepting a sinful man as a Christian.  The man was selling liquor, living an adulterous lifestyle- and yet they keep letting such persons in their assemblies?  That's pretty questionable and stupid because as Pastor Anthony Bispo would say in his pulpits, "If you say you are a Christian and your lifestyle is different, I dare put a big question mark to it!"  Pastor Armie F. Jesalva said, "Such people could not be saved because God changes the lifestyles as slow as it would be."  

We can examine the power of God's salvation displayed in the lives of sinful men whose lives were changed by God's work in salvation- Matthew and Zacchaeus left their offices as corrupt publicans, Saul the persecutor of Christians became Paul the evangelist, Luke was a Greek pagan turned apostle.  I am not saying that Christians cannot backslide.  David backslid by committing adultery and murder but later because he saved, he repented.  Jeremiah quit preaching for a time because he was discouraged but God brought him back on track.  Peter denied he was a Christian yet he was restored.  These are true converts.  Although Lot was stupid enough to enter Sodom and eventually married an unbeliever, his being a righteous man had him vexed about the immorality of the city involved in all sorts of sexual perversions especially homosexuality.  I would sin, stumble but I remain saved and the evidence is in my restoration and chastising.  Hebrews 12:5-6 says that God spanks His real children while leaving the children of the Devil to their own destruction.  For one thing, Christianity is not external reformation (while no inner change occurs!) but inner reformation that works itself outside.

However there are people who sadly think they are saved just because they attend church at least once a week, some people think just because the "prayed" (and it was all but a sham, not a repentant prayer but a false prayer) in contrast to the publican's crying mightily unto God "God be merciful to me a sinner" seeing himself a sinner."  Their outcome is very different- they are false converts.  So what happens? These are different from backsliders, these are apostates.  Apostates were never saved to start with (1 John 2:19).  Judas Iscariot was mentioned in John 17 during the great priestly prayer that none of the disciples were lost except for Judas Iscariot, who was called "the son of perdition".  Judas Iscariot unlike Judas not Iscariot was  never a Christian- no argument about that.  His marks?  He was an unrepentant thief, later he betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver- he could have forgiven if he asked but instead, he "repented" of his betrayal to the Pharisees, threw the blood money and later killed himself.  Such a person was not a Christian to begin with.  In today's society how can such people be really Christians and claim to be when in fact, their lifestyles prove otherwise?  Matthew 7:16-20 says, "By their fruits you will know them."

Until assessment is done, false converts will keep coming in and destroying the testimony of the assembly.  This will allow infiltrators like Jesuit spies and Communist agents of any kind to succeed, destroy the testimony of Christians, jeopardize the order among brethren and so on.  The worse part is, these infiltrators may even get disillusioned they are already saved.  But with performance assessment also done, it may even reveal a slick Jesuit spy the truth in the need for salvation.  By this, infiltrators will either leave because they are no longer comfortable with sitting there for long or two, even get saved.