Here is one of my favorite verses:  You believed in Christ, and God put his stamp of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised. (Ephesians 1:13, Good News Translation)

When you go to the fair they put a stamp on the back of your hand indicating that you have paid the price of admission and deserve to be there. If you go out for a while, you can come back in by showing your stamp.

When we believed in Christ, God put his stamp (of ownership!) on us. Like the verse said, the stamp is the Holy Spirit. When he looks at us he doesn’t look at our behavior. It isn’t the things that we do or don’t do that prove to him that we are his and that we deserve to go into heaven. He sees the stamp–his own Spirit. This proves that we are his children. All of his children have no sin in his eyes and all of them deserve to go into heaven because the price of admission has been paid, not but us but by Jesus.

All of God's children have an indelible stamp, the Holy Spirit, indicating that they can freely walk into heaven because their dues have been paid by Jesus.

So, the questions you need to ask yourself are, “Do I have the stamp?  Do I have the Holy Spirit inside of me?” Those are the vital questions but there has been argument about how to prove that you have the Holy Spirit since the beginning of Christianity.

Here is my answer, and it is related to this verse:  Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. (Romans 8:5)

I say that you can test yourself, and know whether or not you have the Holy Spirit, by examining your passion. If your mind is set on the things that the Spirit desires, if you are really passionate about finding the daily and overall agenda of God for your life, then that isn’t coming from you. It is coming from the Holy Spirit inside of you. You pass the test. You have the stamp!

Of course, if you examine yourself and find that you are obsessed with the things of this world, and you are not genuinely asking God to be your guide, then you are stampless and you fail the test.

Don’t let that happen to you. You have got to have the stamp of the Holy Spirit to get into heaven. Jesus is Lord of the universe but only you can make him Lord of your life.

Main point: If you do not care about the agenda of God, and you care about the things of this world, then there is no indication that you have the Holy Spirit.

So what: To what degree are you pursuing the agenda of God for your life? To what degree are you pursuing your own agenda?

I would love to hear your thoughts.