“Note then the kindness and severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.” (Romans 11:22)

Ornithologists tell us that not every baby bird survives the ordeal of the nest. In a clutch of three eggs, often at least one of the chicks will die and be cast out of the nest. The reasons are mysterious, but what they boil down to is a kind of failure to thrive.

Similarly, Jesus warned that not everyone who shows up before Him on the day of judgment, thinking he’s got a free pass to eternal life, will make the cut. Though he professes Jesus to be his Lord, and pleads his abundant activism for Jesus’ name, he will be stunned and disappointed when the Lord says to him, “Depart from Me; I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-23).

It is likely that many Christians today are looking to the wrong things as evidence of their salvation. What do we regard as the marks of true and saving faith? Typically, we want to hear some kind of profession (“Lord, Lord”), and we expect that profession to be validated by some sort of involvement in the life of the faith community (“Have I not sung in the choir, taught Sunday school, served on numerous committees and in a variety of programs, and even been an officer?”). The latter, we admit, is not essential; it’s enough that they claim to believe in Jesus. However, engaging in Christian activities helps to put away any doubts, whether in ourselves or in our fellow believers, as to the genuineness of our faith.

So if there is a testimony and some evidence of Christian activity, these are enough for us to believe that we and our neighbors are safe in the grace of the Lord. Or are they?

What may be missing is a deep-seated failure to thrive in our souls, a lack of any truly personal relationship with Jesus, or love for Him, that we cleverly disguise and suppress by the memory of our profession and the hectic pace of our Christian activities. Thinking that we are alive and well, simply because we’re in the nest along with all the other chicks, we nevertheless fail to engage in the fundamental practices that can guarantee we will come to maturity and fruitfulness as the offspring of the Lord. Then, one day, our failure to thrive catches up to us, and we simply bail out of the nest of the Church, give up our faith in any real active sense, and hurtle to the earth to languish and die, separated from the grace of the Lord. Or, we may just dawdle along in the nest in perpetuity, thinking all is well, not realizing that we’re dying or dead without ever having lived.

The Apostle Paul warns any who may be complacent in his faith that he must persist in the kindness of God or he will surely fall from His favor.