Wednesday, January 8, 2020

SELLING THE NEW BIRTH SHORT

As Christians we use a lot of terms from Scripture that are important & that describe God does in us when we come to Christ. We call it being born again, born from above, born of the Spirit, regenerated, receiving eternal life. We use a lot of terms like that to describe the desired result from what that we do to help people to to receive Christ.

Some of the things we might do are share with them the 4 Spiritual Laws, The ABCs of Salvation, or The Roman Road. We encourage them to put their faith in Christ, to repent of their sins to turn to the Lord, to trust in God's promises, or to respond to an invitation to say the Sinner's Prayer.

But, after we've done all of those things there is the one thing that only the Holy Spirit can do. 

We can have somebody pray the sinner's prayer, but if they didn't actually receive Christ, they just said words. Somebody can be sorry for the wrongs that they have done or say that they trust in Christ, but their life is not inwardly changed or regenerated. They haven't truly received eternal life.

This reality of Christian experience is scary and intimidating, because we can DO a lot of things but we can't make a person a new creation in Christ. Our hands are tied; we don't have the means to do that.

But this reality is also comforting & encouraging. No matter how many of those other things we've done or how well we've done them, they have no power of their own. In the end, only the Spirit of God can do the work that brings a person to Christ. 

And that's exciting, because once that happens their life is changed. They do become a new creation in Christ, & and nothing that we can do or that the devil can do can take that away or can change that moment in time. If you have experienced this, you know it to be true.

So let's do what we can do, but let's also be glad that it is the undomesticated Spirit of God who executes God's work in this world. 

Ultimately, He is the only one who can do the work in the lives of the people that we seek to lead to Christ.

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