A born again person
who is
right with God knows they are born again and right with God. If they
don't know this
it is a huge red flag -
and this man
was crying out for help.....
No, this man was a
strong, solid, dedicated believer. His problem was, he had been deceived by
people like you. Again, please just leave me and my words, thoughts, posts out
of your considerations. I have ask you nicely now three
times.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 10:14
AM
Subject: [TruthTalk] John
16:13,14
How terribly sad
- did somebody counsel and pray with this man who was obviously
under conviction of the Spirit?
You are
judging him by "outward appearances" Bill. You can't know what
goes on in the hearts of ppl - folk can make
a great showing after
the flesh or some may just live in quiet desperation. I would
have taken this dear man seriously
enough to go
over the
scriptures and pray with him so he can be sure of his eternal destiny rather
than give him some
false assurance.
A born again person
who is
right with God knows they are born again and right with God. If they
don't know this
it is a huge red flag
- and this
man was crying out for help.....
Bill writes:
Yes, in Christ in his
resurrection, BUT not everyone is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that
comes by way of belief or faith in Jesus Christ. What we call our
"conversion experience" does happen in this lifetime, and sometimes this can
be a profound and life-altering experience; other times it is not
so profound for people who have grown up in the church and spent their
lifetimes worshiping the Lord. I think we are prone
to base too much of our "faith" in religious experience and not trained well
enough at basing it in the object of that faith: Jesus Christ.
I watched a
saintly ninety year old elder of our church break down and weep because
he did not know for sure if he had been "born again." He had grown up
in the church and could not remember a time that he did not believed in
Jesus Christ, yet he had never had one of those earth-shaking conversion
experiences that others had had. We, the church, had placed so much emphasis
on that "born again experience" that we had misled godly people into
doubting their salvation. The weight of the world was upon this man's
shoulders, and he could not withstand the weight of it. He was as godly as
anyone you would ever meet, had served the Lord faithfully his whole life,
yet believe in "spiritual death" and the necessity to be "born again" and
thus could not place his finger on a point in his life when he stopped being
spiritually dead and started being a born again believer. We did that
to him -- not the Lord.
