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THE
BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?
EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?
GOD
- MAN
Is Jesus really God?
RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?
SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?
TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.
SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.
FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?
GUIDANCE
How does God guide?
REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.
BORN
AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?
SAVING
FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven
ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?
TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?
MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.
THE
CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the
new millennium.
PURPOSE
How
can I find a great purpose for living?
IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of
God.
SELF-ESTEEM
How
can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.
LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.
THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.
Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.
Two matters for clarification
Before looking at some of the results of spiritual rebirth, there are two matters of common misunderstanding which I wish to address.
Conversion - sudden or gradual?
If we are thinking in terms of the whole process of turning to God, from the time a person first consciously begins to seek God to that time when they know that they have found him, then the answer may be either sudden or gradual. The process may take years or happen in a relatively short period. One of the questions John Stott put to his church members in the questionnaire was "How long a period elapsed between the awakening of your interest and your conversion?" Only five claimed a really sudden conversion on the same day, and five more within a few days. Ten measured the period in weeks, twenty-seven in months and forty-three in years. The remaining fifteen could not remember, mostly because they had been born and bred in a Christian home.
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The process may take years or happen in a relatively short period"
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In some contrast to this, it is interesting to note that in the book of Acts in the New Testament, which records the growth of the early church over a period of thirty-five years, most of the conversions appear to be of the more sudden nature. People heard the good news of what Jesus offered them and accepted it. However, we must remember that this was a first-generation church. People had not been raised in committed Christian homes.
However, whether this process is sudden or gradual is not the important issue. One woman, who shared faith in Christ with her husband, said, "I always tell people that I came to Christ with a big bang and Jim came with a slow burn." The real question is: Has it happened? At some point in each person's search for God, he gives them the Holy Spirit and they are reborn. This, by nature of the event, cannot be anything but sudden. Either we have received the Holy Spirit or we haven't. The Bible is clear about this. We don't have to know when it happens. The prominent revivalist preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who saw many people converted through his ministry, said, "Many are, doubtless, ready to date their conversion wrong." However, it is important to know that it has happened. I will explore this further when we look at the results of being reborn.
What about emotions?
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, the noted Methodist minister and writer, preaching at the City Temple in London, said:
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If Christianity is falling
in love with Christ, has anyone ever fallen in love without emotion?"
Leslie Weatherhead |
What is wrong with emotion? If Christianity is falling in love with Christ, has anyone ever fallen in love without emotion? Can we imagine somebody advising a young lover in saying: "I would not marry her if I were you, you evidently feel too deeply about it." How could anyone come into contact with the living Christ and feel both His forgiving love and His relentless challenge without the very deepest emotion?
For some people, conversion can be an emotional experience. Having been privileged to sometimes be present with people who are taking the step of committing their lives to Christ, I observe that occasionally there are tears. Often there is more a sense of relief or even joy. However, for some it is a very unemotional decision. John R. W. Stott is described by historian David Edwards as; "apart from William Temple [who died as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1944] the most influential clergyman in the Church of England during the twentieth century". Edwards, in the book Essentials, tells how Stott recalled the silent prayer he prayed as he knelt at his bedside in a Rugby School dormitory one Sunday night in February 1938.
In a simple, matter-of-fact but definite way he told Christ that he had made rather a mess of his life so far; he confessed his sins; he thanked Christ for dying for him; and he asked him to come into his life.
The sincerity of that prayer was evidenced by the note that Stott wrote in his diary next day, "He has come into my house and now rules in it."
C. S. Lewis, when he admitted that God was God and first knelt to pray, described himself in his biography, Surprised by Joy, as "perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." He describes his final step as follows:
I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. "Emotional" is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.
The Scottish clergyman, Robert McCheyne, wrote in his diary at a time when God was sending revival to his parish and there was much emotion present in the meetings, "If God saves souls in a quiet way I shall be happy; if in the midst of cries and tears, still I will bless his name." Two quotes from a Tennessee mountain preacher put emotion in the right perspective. "Today we go to the football game to do our shouting, to the movies to do our crying, and to the Church to do our freezing." "I don't care how high you jump or how loud you shout, as long as when you hit the ground you walk straight."
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What does it mean to be converted and born again
The necessity of being born again
Popular substitutes for spiritual rebirth
Two matters for clarification
The results of being born again
