This post came about as a response to someone who, previously, was dedicated to going to church, but something happened, and now they have been out of church for about a year. They were requesting me to pray that they would be lead to find the church that God wants them to be in and to basically get past things that happened to them, I'm assuming, at the church they attended. This person feels a great responsibility for the spiritual well being of the children in the home and an unsaved spouse. Below is my response:
Whether I know
someone personally or not, I start off this way. Make sure that "you"
have a real and true relationship with the Lord. What I mean is; are you truly
saved? Many people claim to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, but there
seems to be no evidence of it. I have a blog and recently posted one called
"Proofs of Genuine Salvation". It can be found at:
Proofs of Genuine Salvation.
It was written by an evangelist. I ask that you please take a look at it as
there is some good information on the subject.
I just looked at that post again and would
like to add some more "proofs" that a person has truly accepted Christ and add them as a new post. Just think, God has
used you to prompt me to add these. Who knows how many other people this may
help. =)
I know this may turn out to be long,
but if you truly want to know what God wants me to say to you, you will hang
with me. I hope you do! No, I pray you do! Here are the other "proofs":
1)
Salvation brings repentance. When we first
met Christ we were walking in one direction…away from God. We sinned and had no
problem sinning, we loved the things of this world, and we loved darkness. But,
when we met the Savior, believed everything the Bible says about Him, and then accepted
His great gift of payment for our sins, we immediately turned in the opposite
direction…now walking WITH Him. That is repentance. The Bible says unless you
repent you will perish (
Luke 13:3). This is not to be confused with confessing
your sins. We are told to confess our sins and salvation will prompt a person
to do this, but God then requires that we repent (
turn away from those sins) to
be saved.
Many confess, but not all turn.
2) We became a new creature. “Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new.” ~2 Corinthians 5:17
And a
new creature means “a new creature”. Everything about us changed. Our attitude.
Our desires. Our walk. Our talk. Our friends. Everything! Old things…gone! No
one, except the Holy Spirit, helped us change. We did it with His help. No one had to keep us accountable. Not our pastor. Not our Sunday
school teacher. Not our friends. Not our church. After this change we are no
longer recognizable as the person we were because the God of this universe now lives
in us. We are COMPLETELY new!
3)
The Bible also calls it born again or a
new birth. We had one birth into this world – it was into an earthly family. We
cannot go back into our mother’s womb. When we accept Christ we are born again,
but now, into the family of God. We do NOT have to get born again and again. It
is a onetime birth – just like our earthly birth. So, now that we are a member of
His family we start acting like His family, especially His Son, Jesus. (We use
Jesus as our example to imitate because not everyone who calls themselves Christian
is a Christian.)
From
this time forward, until the day we die, God will continue to conform us to the
image of His Son (
Romans 8:29).
He not only wants us to be His sons and daughters, He wants us to look and act
like His
Only Begotten Son. “Begotten Son” means that Jesus is the only child
God has that is His natural born child. God used the seed of a woman. The Holy
Spirit breathed onto the seed of Mary to place Jesus in her womb to become a
man -- a God/man -- fully God, yet fully man.
A
baby in a mother’s womb get’s nutrients and oxygen from the mother, but not one
drop of blood passes from mother to child. If it did, Jesus would have
corrupted, sinful blood, but He does NOT -- He has pure, undefiled, sinless
blood from His Father.
The rest of us are adopted children and
God wants His adopted ones to look like the natural One because the natural One
is without sin. Each day we strive to be more like Jesus. God knows that while we are on this earth we will never be able
to live a sinless life. That’s why He sent Jesus – to pay the high price God
demanded as payment for sin – which was eternal death. Because of our sins we
were sentenced to death, but Christ died in our place. Jesus paid the price
that God demanded. We accepted His sacrifice. Now, when God looks at us He no longer sees us
He sees the sacrifice – He sees His Son’s blood – He sees, Jesus. When we are
unsaved (haven't accepted) He sees us still in the earthly flesh passed on by our parents – sinful,
lost, and dying flesh -- and not as a son or daughter, but as a child of the prince of
this world (satan). We cannot serve two masters, either we serve God, or we
serve satan. Only those who have been born again serve God. Many can do
service, but not all do it for His glory. They do it for their own glory or to earn their way to God. This service will be rejected. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy
name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew
you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. ~Matthew 7:22-23
One of the best parts about being an
adopted child of God is that we now have full rights to everything the Son has,
including His peace, His humility, His strength, His compassion for others, and
on and on. And we now own everything He owns. The Bible says we are “joint
heirs” with the Son (
Romans 8:17) just like you are joint heirs with any
brothers or sisters you may have here on earth of what your parents own and
will inherit after they pass on. Of course, in that case it may depend on the
parent’s will. They can disown a natural child, but cannot disown an adopted child. God will not disown His adopted children. We are His forever. When we are His, we will NEVER perish and no one
can pluck His child out of His hand (
John 10:28-29).
4) Because we are His child we will pursue
holiness to be like God’s Son and shun sinfulness in our lives. A Christian
will not live in constant, habitual sin. He will not love sinning. Since a
child of God is still living on this earth and still subject to their own flesh
there will be times that we will still sin, but a Christian will not look for
sin or find pleasure in sin. A Christian may fall into sin, but they will be
miserable while they are in it. They will find no peace or rest because they
are no longer of this world and the Holy Spirit in them will make them
miserable. In due time, their misery will cause them to run back to fellowship
with God because, ultimately, fellowship with God is more important to them than
anything else.
5)
A true Christian will continue with God.
Even if we have fallen into sin and are miserable we still believe. Even when
the worst possible thing happens to us, we may get angry with God, but we will
still believe, and we will never turn completely away from Him and we will not
stay away from Him.
6)
After we are saved we will have a love
for God’s Word. Why? The Holy Spirit within us will give us a hunger and a
thirst to know God completely. We will have a desire to know what pleases God
so we can live our life accordingly. We will have a desire to learn what to say
to others, either to lead them to Christ or help them in their times of
trouble. We will want to know how to get victory over things in our own lives. We
will not just want to know the basics to help us get by; we will want to also learn the deep
things of God.
7) When we
are a child of God there will be a burning desire to tell others about Christ because it is His will that no one should perish. Because of the Holy Spirit
living in us we are given this new desire to obey the will of God in this matter. God uses His children to tell others
about His Son and His saving grace. He uses us to plant the seed of the gospel in
another person’s heart and maybe even water a seed that someone else has
planted. Then it is God who will give us a crop from that seed – known as “He
will give us souls for our labor” – and in other words “more brothers and
sisters” – more family members for His kingdom.
When
we tell others about Christ we can go no further; other than to pray that they will
be convicted and accept Him and we must continue to pray as long as it takes. We can’t make anyone
accept our Savior. It’s a decision they must make on their own.
The Holy Spirit takes over in drawing that person to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works
to prod a person to open their eyes and see the Truth – that Jesus is the ONLY
access to God. To see God’s Son for whom He is, what He is, and what He has done and help them to believe. If they refuse, they remain in darkness. Their eyes and ears stay closed to the Truth.
They remain in their lost state.
And
while we tell others about Christ, God gives us a compassion for the lost we
are trying to reach. We know and remember what we were when we first met Jesus
and we realize that apart from Him we ourselves would still be lost and on our
way to a devil’s hell. We are not boastful in anything about ourselves because
until we go to be with Him, we are not yet completely like Him. We are still subject to sin, but saved through faith and by His grace (His unmerited favor). We are people, whose sins are covered by the
blood of His precious Son. So we witness, through tears and with love, knowing
the fate of the lost and knowing that was our fate as well...until we met and
accepted the Savior.
From
reading God’s Word and having the Holy Spirit living in us we know and feel the
urgency to tell others about Him – NOW. We truly believe that if His Word tells
us He is coming back then we take Him at His Word. We know that it can be at
any moment. We are not so engrossed in this world that we have lost our desire
for the next. We know that this is not our home and we long for our real home
with God. So, we do what we can, while we can, to get the word out that, “JESUS SAVES!
and JESUS IS COMING!”
Now, none of this has come from a high
level of education. I just barely have a high school diploma, a few computer
courses and secretarial courses from long ago. Before I was saved as a child I
lived in a godless (alcohol and abuse), uneducated (both parents made it to
the 6th grade) family. There was absolutely no Christian background.
This was written without consulting any other document other than my remembrance
of what I have read in God’s Word or have gleaned over the years from older, godly
writers, or sermons I have heard. All I did was look up a couple of references
from scriptures (that God brought to my mind) to make sure I was quoting them
correctly. I sat here and just wrote as God led by His Spirit, as the Spirit
pulled out of me what I have previously studied, learned, and listened to. I have no special ability in myself other than what God has given. I don’t
know why God wanted me to say that part, but I obeyed.
Many churches, since the turn of the
last century, have preached that if you just believe and say a prayer you’ll be saved, but even the devil believes (
James 2:19).
There are so many today that have been lulled into this false teaching. That is
why we see so many come down to the altar, say a prayer, confess all kinds of
sin, and may even try to live right for a while, but then fall away and go
right back to the life they had before and are sometimes even worse than they
were at the first and the sad part is that because of this teaching they
actually think they will still go to heaven even though they live in sin. We call these people backsliders, when most likely they never slid forward in the first place (were never saved at
all). But, not all leave the church. Some try to surround themselves with others
who are like them. While they try to imitate the real children of God, they
still fall short. These usually turn out to be judgmental, gossipers, obsessive,
troublemakers, divisive, clique groups, the power hungry, drama kings, and
drama queens who thrive on others misery. They think that if they can make you
look bad it will make them look better and soothe their guilty consciences. They are
what God refers to as tares (weeds that look like wheat) or He calls them goats.
Real Christians are wheat or sheep. Wheat will be used to feed the multitudes
and sheep hear the Shepherd’s voice and go and do as He commands. You will also
know them by the fruit they produce (their deeds and attitudes of the heart).
By now, you may be saying, “it must be
hard to be saved then”. No, it is still simple. God made it so simple that
even a child can understand. I was saved at the age of 7. Yes, to be saved you
must believe, but it is how you believe that matters. Many people claim to believe
in Jesus Christ. They believe that He is real. But, there is something missing,
it is how they believe. Let me explain by using this story….
You are in an airplane and you are told
that when the plane reaches 30,000 feet you will have to jump and there is no
way out of it. You are going to have to jump. Then someone comes to you and
says, “Let me tell you about this parachute. If you put it on it will save your
life when you jump. It will save you from destruction. And it is the ONLY thing
that can.” So, you ponder this for a moment.
Maybe this is the first time you
have ever heard about this parachute so you are a little unsure that it will
actually save you or maybe you have heard of this parachute before. You haven’t
actually seen one up close, but you have seen what it did for others. You then
have some choices to make. Here we find the possible responses:
- Even though you
may have seen evidence that there is a parachute, you decide that there is no
such thing. So, you put on your earphones and go back to sleep because you have
also decided that you will not have to jump either, after all, this
flight (your life) has been going along just fine so far so you think it will
continue right on.
- OR you believe there is a parachute, but you don’t want to be
bothered with it. It just seems like too much work to put it on. It may even offend you because of its great claims to save, so
you will just take your chances without it.
- OR you may think to yourself, “There
has to be a better way.” So, off you go looking high and low for another way to save your life because you do believe you’re gonna have to jump, but that parachute
just doesn’t sound too appealing or it just seems too simple.
- OR you lay the parachute aside for right now
because you don’t want to be weighed down with it and it would probably be uncomfortable,
but you want it close by in case you do have to jump. Hopefully, you’ll have
time to put it on!
- OR you can pretend to put it on by not really fastening it
to yourself because you really don’t want it to be on you too tight so you can
slide it on or off at your leisure.
- OR you believe there is a Parachute and you even believe that the Manufacturer took great care in making this parachute available to you. You also believe it will save you from the
destruction that will come about because of the fall when you have to jump. So, you grab it, put it on, buckle it completely, and cling
to it with all your might knowing without a doubt it will save you from the
jump that WILL come. Oh, how you love that precious Parachute! It will be with
you and on you at ALL times.
I hope you can see in this story all
the different types of people and how they believe or don’t believe in the
Parachute (the parachute being Jesus Christ). We all must make a decision to
either accept Christ or reject Him. Out of all the decisions above only one
was correct and that was the last one. If a person chooses any of the other
scenarios or makes no decision at all they have still made a choice. The wrong
choice. It’s all of Him or none of Him.
Now, if you made it through all this
and you can say without a shadow of a doubt that you are saved we can go on
from here and talk about the rest of your response and prayer request. If you
cannot, then there is no help I can offer you that will have a great,
life-changing impact on your situation other than me leading you to Christ.
Let me know and I can guide you from
there. Remember, there are no coincidences with God. You responded
to my post for a reason. God is in control and working out everything for our
good.
Now, I want to thank you so much for
the encouragement about my posts on Facebook. Sometimes it does get weary when posting
things about the Lord or Christianity and not many respond, but sadly, it is a
sign of the times.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Love in Christ,
The
Princess Warrior
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© 2009 The Princess Warrior Ministries. All articles are copyrighted on
the date they are posted, unless otherwise indicated. All rights
reserved.
Permission granted for not-for-sale reproduction in exact form including
copyright and web address. Other uses require written permission.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the
King James Bible.
