Before I became a born again Christian I’d heard a few talks about it, and had also seen people who claimed to have been born again. However, what I saw, and heard, was quite different from what I experienced when I eventually became a born again Christian, because it was then something happening inside of me.
To be sincere with you, I had tried having the experience a few times prior to the time when I eventually found Jesus Christ as my Lord and my personal Saviour. If you ask me now what made the difference between the first failed attempts and the final one, which eventually worked, I would say that it was knowledge; knowledge of the ways and workings of God, through the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Consider the scripture below with me:
1Chr.28.9: “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father [have personal knowledge of Him, be acquainted with, and understand Him; appreciate, heed, and cherish Him] and serve Him with a blameless heart and a willing mind. For the Lord searches all hearts and minds and understands all the wanderings of the thoughts. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him as your first and vital necessity] you will find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever! “ AMP
I was raised by devoted Catholic parents, and was taught how to pray and practice Christian piety, according to the Catholic tradition, right from an early age. My mum often told me stories from the Bible and prayer was a constant family tradition and, therefore, as it’d be expected, I grew up with a religious zeal which matched my Christian upbringing.
Prov.22.6: “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it”. NLT
As a Catholic, I tried to be a faithful Christian. I joined the choir, I trained as a man servant ( altar boy) and I did both house and hospital evangelism as a member of the Legion of Mary, which was one of the many societies a member of the Catholic church could associate and work with as a dedicated Christian. I was doing all of that before I was thirteen years old, or thereabouts. However, when I was sixteen years old, I began to notice other Christian activities outside of the Catholic church: I saw other Christian fellowships in school, Evangelizers approached me with the message of salvation, and I saw some of my neighbours who practiced Christianity differently from the way I did. I may not have noticed it at the time, but all those exposures gave me much food for thought. I began to desire to know God more deeply, and to serve Him more faithfully. I tried my best to avoid doing anything that could offend God, and although I was not always successful at that, nevertheless I did not give up my desire to serve Him faithfully.
Although I was aware that some people admired my Christian life style, yet deep within me I knew that I was still far from living the life that God would accept as meeting His holy standard: I just knew it without knowing how I came by that knowledge.
One night, as I lay on my bed to sleep in the dark, a voice spoke audibly to me: Joseph, if you die now where will you go?
I didn’t have a ready answer to the question. You will go to hell, the voice answered for me. Then all was still and quiet again.
I knew it was God’s voice: I just have that intuitive knowledge that God had just revealed to me the true state of my spiritual life. All the while He spoke, I was at peace, but after His verdict had been passed, and He was gone from my room, I became afraid. I thought that my life was actually going to be taken that night. Sleep fled from my eyes. I thought about the judgment of God, and also about so many things, which I cannot remember now. I felt so unworthy.
1John.3.20: “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things”. NKJV.
I left my room at the first light of day, glad that I had survived the ordeal of that night. However, something about me had changed upon having that encounter: it was like I had awaken to a new reality. I wanted to know what was really acceptable to God from that point; not only from my own personal perspective, but from His own perspective; so I buried myself in intense Bible reading. God opened my eyes and, for the first time, I began to see the world as anyone who wanted to please God would see it. Little things that didn’t matter to me before became issues of grave concern; things like laughter in the Church when the priest cracked a joke during his sermon; or like people conversing while in the Church. Certain things which I had overlooked before that encounter now appeared as horrible abnormalities to me: I thought everyone should be serious in God’s presence. Wherever I looked, I see people practicing those things as if they were the norms of life, even in the Church ! So, I stopped attending church altogether because I was sure that what they were doing there could not help me.
At that time I turned to God in fervent prayers to change my life, which He eventually did. He saved me from the sinful life I was living. The day He saved me, I knew that my sins were forgiven, and I didn’t want to practice them any more.
The above is just a brief narration of my salvation encounter with God, through His Son Jesus Christ. And I will be using this experience in conjunction with the first scripture I quoted ( 1 Chronicles 28:9) to explain what true salvation is and the error that some people so often make, which makes the experience elusive to them.
Let me reproduce that same scripture again and break it down in three- easy- to-understand ways, so as to help us better understand the principles enunciated in it.
First:
1Chronicles.28:9:
“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father [have personal knowledge of Him, be acquainted with, and understand Him;
God wants an intimate relationship with us, and He has already provided the means by which we can have it with Him, which is the Holy Bible. You should regard the Holy Bible as God’s love letter, requesting a relationship with you, the sinner.
Now, there’s no way you can find out about this love request unless you have either read the Holy Bible yourself, or heard someone, who has read it, tell you about God’s love advances towards you.
This is the kind of knowledge, which king David admonished Solomon his son to have. He was to know God for himself, and to try and understand His requests, and to respond to it.
Some people do not even have the time to read God’s word, with a view to knowing Him well enough, so as to be able to consider how to answer to His request for a love relationship. Others avoid the Holy Bible thinking that it is a boring book filled with restrictions, and/or demands, that would take the shine off their life. They judged God before they have even read His love letter.
Attending church meetings, or even carrying out some religious duties, without first wanting to know God, is not the right way to start a relationship with Him. It should be taken for granted that people attend church meetings because they have a desire to know God. Some people have not this knowledge, and yet still wonder why their lives can feel so love-less and meaningless, even with their commitment to religious activities. All what we do in the church, or at home, would be meaningless, unless we have a personal knowledge of God’s love for us, and have also favourably responded to His request to accept His love.
John.17.3: “And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent”. AMP
When Solomon received this admonition from king David his father, he embarked on a quest to know God. This account is recorded in 1 Kings chapter 3 . However, let’s consider a few of the verses:
1Kgs.3.3 – “Solomon loved the LORD and followed all the instructions of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local altars.
1Kgs.3.4 – The most important of these altars was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed one thousand burnt offerings.
1Kgs.3.5 – That night the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!” — NLT
There’s no way that God can ever ignore the person who responds to His love overture: in fact He eagerly awaits the response!
Jer.31.3: “The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” NKJV
If this is true, you might ask, how is it that God does not seem to transform some people’s lives even after they have prayed to Him asking Him to save them?
Important question!
I have questioned the practice by some preachers who are in the habit of getting people to say “the sinner’s prayer” before they have even had the time to know God. Being born again is a very serious business which requires the meeting of two minds; God’s, and the willing sinner’s. As it is with any relationship that will last a lifetime, making a decision to surrender one’s life to Jesus Christ must be deliberate, not spontaneous: it must be the outcome of a careful and unforced decision, free of threats and/or coercion. The warning given to a sinner should be aimed at letting them see the danger to which a sinful life can expose their soul to. Similarly, the persuasion made to them should be to enable them to consider accepting God’s free love, forgiveness and mercy: the motive shouldn’t be to push them into a hasty, fear -driven decision to accept Jesus , because a relationship based on fear cannot take off well, let alone outlast and overcome the trials that must surely test its genuineness along the way. Salvation is a love thing:
John.3.16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” NLT .
1John.4.18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
1John.4.19 We love Him because He first loved us.” NKJV
No one has the right to force a love relationship on anyone, not even with God! Our duty as God’s people is to properly preach the truth of the gospel to the sinner, and make an appeal for them to accept God’s love and salvation: if they’re presently willing and ready to do so, very well; if otherwise, then we must pray for them in the meantime, and to wait for another opportunity to make another appeal to them.
Gal.4.19 – “But oh, my dear children! I feel as if I am going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives”. — NLT.
We must discourage the practice whereby people are casually called upon to come forward to accept Jesus Christ into their lives, and after a little prayer, they are assured that they are now born again, and that their names have been written in the book of life! That is not the preacher’s call to make. Assuming that the requirement for salvation is actually fully met at that time, it is still the duty of the Holy Spirit to give assurances to the repentant sinner that they have been accepted into God’s family.
Rom.8.16 – “For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children”. — NLT.
Now, let us look at the second part of that scripture in 1 Chronicles 28:9; it says:
“…appreciate, heed, and cherish Him] and serve Him with a blameless heart and a willing mind.. “
Any child of God, who has tasted of the goodness of God’s saving grace, will agree that no unsaved person can fulfilled the admonition in the scripture above, yet that’s what some innocent people are actually encouraged to do without a prior knowledge of, and true submission to God, through Jesus Christ His Son. The words in the scripture above are crafted to connote a deliberate response to God’s love by a person who themself are in love with Him.
We cannot submit to God in that way without first knowing and loving Him.
John.14.23 – “Jesus replied, “All those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and live with them.
John.14.24 – Anyone who doesn’t love me will not do what I say. And remember, my words are not my own. This message is from the Father who sent me”. — NLT
The mistake of compelling people into accepting Christ as Lord and Saviour, even when it is obvious that they’re not ready for such an undertaking, becomes manifest by the absence of the Christ-life, which they are supposed to manifest as proof of their encounter with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is the reason why you see people claiming to be saved but with nothing substantial in their character to show for it. Consider the order of change which happens when a person is genuinely saved: God’s Word says it in 2Cor.5.17: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!” AMP
First, the process of being “grafted” into Jesus Christ must happen through knowing and depending on Him, with the whole of one’s heart, for salvation and deliverance from sin, which we need.
Jesus Christ Himself alluded to this process in John.15.5 where He said, “I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing”. AMP.
So, where this important process is not allowed to happen, simply because we are in a hurry to get the credit for leading people to Jesus Christ, then they cannot draw His life transforming virtue into their lives, not having been grafted into one body with Him.
1Cor.6.17: “But the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him”. AMP.
As the phrase actually imply, being born again is supposed to be a life changing encounter, unless the process is not properly consummated. So, when people present themselves as being born again, without a transformed life to show for it, then there’s a fundamental flaw to their testimony. This flaw is mostly the fault of the preachers who purportedly led them to Christ. We must know that salvation is a process which must be followed through to the end for any meaningful results to be achieved; in this case, a new life.
1Cor.15.1 – “Now let me remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then and still do now, for your faith is built on this wonderful message.
1Cor.15.2 – And it is this Good News that saves you if you firmly believe it–unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place”. — NLT.
Finally, let us consider the third part of that scripture in 1Chronicles 28:9.
“..For the Lord searches all hearts and minds and understands all the wanderings of the thoughts. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him as your first and vital necessity] you will find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever! “ AMP.
Jesus Christ does not do casual friendship. He loves His own to the end.
John.13.1 “[Now] before the Passover Feast began, Jesus knew (was fully aware) that the time had come for Him to leave this world and return to the Father. And as He had loved those who were His own in the world, He loved them to the last and to the highest degree”. AMP.
You must understand that Jesus Christ sees right through us! So, if you have to get saved by Him, it must be on the same terms as His; that you’re going to remain faithful to Him all your life. However, if at the initial point of pledging your life to Him you’re not being sincere, either because of certain habits or characters, which you’re not sure of repenting of, and discarding for His sake, then the process cannot sail through.
John.2.23 “During the time he was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him.
John.2.24 But Jesus didn’t entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were.
John.2.25 He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them”. MSB.
Because Jesus Christ knows us all, He can deal with us based on that knowledge. This is the reason why many people may answer to an altar call, but just a few of them may end up experiencing the joy of God’s salvation in Christ.
The person who wants to be genuinely born again must, of necessity, have come to a crisis point where what really matters to them is Jesus Christ’s forgiveness and mercy over their sins, which they also must be willing to confess, repent of and forsake for ever. When anyone comes before Him in repentance, He can tell if they have been broken to that extent or not.
So, where does this place the preachers who think that they can give people salvation on some terms alien to known scriptural values? It is high time that we stopped usurping the Lord’s power to save whom He will, otherwise we would be giving a false hope to a lot of people as, regrettably, many have already! This recklessness of giving a false hope to sinners must have to stop, or else we must be ready to bear the consequences which will inevitably follow.
Matt.23.15 – “Yes, how terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn him into twice the son of hell as you yourselves are”. — NLT.
Suffice it that after we have preached the gospel, with all sincerity, we should invite who ever is ready and willing to make a life transforming commitment to Jesus Christ and then lead them on it, not pre-empting anyone to do or to say anything that they’re not yet convinced of. Thereafter, we must desist from attempting to give them any hopes, as we see being done; that they are now children of God, and that their names are now written in the book of life: let God be the judge of that!
Jer.17.10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” NIV.
Salvation is a personal affair between the sinner and the Saviour. He has a clear cut process for the salvation of the soul, which must be followed through to the end.
It is God’s desire to see more and more people get saved through His Son Jesus Christ. However, we must be careful so that we are not seen to be the reason why this desire is truncated.
The price for the salvation of the soul of the lost sinner was paid in blood and agony, so the next time we minister to the lost, we must let this fact weigh in heavily in our mind, and to let it dictate the mood for the solemn duty we have at hand.
Heb.10.29 “How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
It is my humble prayer that while trying to be a light to those in darkness, we would not end up incurring the wrath of Almighty God because we have obscured the true light of salvation from shinning upon them.
Amen.