Friday, October 31, 2014
I’ve had some very unusual experiences in my life, sometimes even bizarre, so I was not totally shocked with one I had recently, for I have had similar encounters before. I was about to conduct a small family ceremony at our church and about 15 minutes before we started, a middle-aged lady walked in asking to speak to the pastor. Since she seemed to be dressed up for that occasion, I thought she was going to ask a question about the ceremony. I was wrong. Her main topic of conversation was about one of it’s participants, who also happens to be a member of our church. She started off by saying that she knew about the things of God and that she once used to be a Christian herself. Although I said nothing, hearing that immediately raised a red flag in my mind. To make a long story short, she proceeded to accuse said member of some very wicked and immoral things, and ended by saying she just wanted me to know what kind of people we have in our church. I thanked her for enlightening me as she quickly exited the building.
Although on a few occasions I have asked the accused about it, I seldom pay much attention to charges made against people I know, and in this case I didn’t even mention it to the person who was accused. By the scriptures and by personal experience, I’ve come to understand that the Lord does not need the help of the spiritual police or the FBI to reveal things about us or others. The thing that stuck in my mind the most about the lady’s story that day, however, was her apparent belief that one can be a Christian one day and then not be one later on. That is an impossibility! That is as absurd as me saying I used to be Mexican American but now I am Norwegian. If one is a genuine Christian, it means he or she has been born again. The truth is that no one will ever see Heaven unless he or she has been “born again.” Jesus told Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, “Except a man be born again,he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) John also declared that to all those who receive Christ, God gives them the right to become His children and adds that these are they “Which were born , not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (See John 1:12-13)
What we were born as the first time, that is what we are today. If your parents were Italian, you’ll always be Italian. By the same token, if you were one day born again in Christ, from that day forward you became, and will always be, a child of God; nothing or no one can ever change that. I wish I would have had more time to converse with the accusing lady in our story on that day. It was pretty obvious that, although she may have been a member in some church once, she had never been a Christian. And I’m not basing my opinion on the premise that genuine Christians can’t accuse, gossip, or slander, but rather on the fact that a true believer knows, without a doubt, that he or she will always be, a child of God. If you've never been born again, and want to be, Just ask Jesus to come into your heart. That's all it takes.
Memory verse for the week: (Romans 12:2) “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, fervent in prayer.”
