ONLY THE BEGINNING

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  (1 Peter 2:2-3 NIV)

While the new birth is necessary at the beginning, it is only the beginning. We must not think that because we have accepted Christ as Savior and therefore are Christians, this is all there is in the Christian life.

In one way, physical birth is the most important part in our physical lives, because we are not alive in the external world until we have been born. In another way, however, it is the least important of all the aspects of our life, because it is only the beginning and then it is past.

After we are born, the important thing is the living of our lives in all their relationships, possibilities, and capabilities. It is exactly the same with the new birth. 

-- Francis A. Schaeffer in “True Spirituality”

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AN EXCLAMATION POINT

“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)

In order to begin a new chapter, you must end an old chapter. The way to do it is with a simple punctuation mark. You can put a period on the page. It gets the job done. But if you want to be more dramatic, you can use an exclamation point. It’s more decisive, more definitive. Then you turn the page and begin a new sentence, which begins a new paragraph, which begins a new chapter.

What’s true in grammar is true in life.

If you want to break a habit, stop a conflict, or just leave the past in the past, you need a punctuation mark. A comma won’t cut it. Neither will a semicolon. You need an exclamation point in your life! 

-- Mark Batterson in “All In: You Are One Decision Away from a Totally Different Life”

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GROWING IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE - Part 1

“So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.“  (Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV)

As I see it, “growing” is an absolutely essential theme... I confess that growing has been one of my favorite themes all through my ministry. This is probably because I’m a Methodist and have a Methodist outlook on the Christian life. Perhaps it also reflects simply the kind of person I am. But I think I’m this kind of person because I was raised in the best Methodist tradition. I believe in Christian growth. I can’t imagine a version of the Christian life which does not emphasize the absolute importance of growing.

In a sense, this is a sermon about new birth. Because it is built on the assumption that Christianity is a life, not simply a doctrine, and that it begins with a birth and continues with growth. The best proof that a person has been born again is that there is enough life in the individual to make him or her grow. And the biggest embarrassment to the doctrine of the new birth is the person who claims to be a Christian but doesn’t grow. Being born again isn’t an end in itself. God brings us to spiritual birth in order that we will grow up.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in a sermon entitled “What I Have Learned About Growing Up”

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SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION

Every animal on earth has a set of correspondences with the environment around it, and some of these correspondences far exceed ours. Humans can perceive only 30 percent of the range of the sun’s light and 1/70^th of the spectrum of electromagnetic energy. Many animals far exceed our abilities. Bats detect insects by sonar; pigeons navigate by magnetic fields; bloodhounds perceive a world of smell unavailable to us.

Perhaps the spiritual or “unseen” world requires an inbuilt set of correspondences activated only through some sort of spiritual [awakening]. “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” said Jesus (John 3:3 NRSV). “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit,” said Paul (1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV). Both expressions point to a different level of correspondences available only to a person spiritually alive.

-- Philip Yancey in “Seeing the Invisible God”


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THE REAL AND PERCEPTIBLE SPIRIT

“Only God's Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going.”  (John 3:8 CEV)

We feel the breath of the wind upon our cheeks, we see the dust and the leaves blowing before the wind, we see the vessels at sea driven swiftly towards their ports; but the wind itself remains invisible. Just so with the Spirit; we feel His breath upon our souls, we see the mighty things He does, but Himself we do not see. He is invisible, but He is real and perceptible.

-- R. A. Torrey in “The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit”

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COSTLY DISCIPLESHIP

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.’”  (Matthew 28:18-20a)

In high school I was taught that all you have to do to be a Christian is to confess your sin and ask Jesus into your life.  I've discovered since then that it's a lie.

At least it's a lie if we stop there.  Certainly confession and invitation are acts of the will as we enter into new life in Christ.  But we're not born again to live as infants.  A spiritual birth without discipleship is a stillbirth.

The primary Christian activity of many is to come together to talk and sing about Jesus.  But talk is cheap and easy.  Discipleship is costly and difficult.  We must choose:  either we are absolutely and radically submitted to the reign of Jesus in our lives, or we're just consumers shopping the religion market.

-- Chuck Shelton in “Voiceless People: InterVarsity Global Issues Bible Studies” 

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