Are
there recognizable proofs to one being
"born of GOD"? As surely as physical life lends
evidence of itself, so too does the miracle of new birth breath
in discernable ways.
Do You
Have A Heart and Mind of Repentance? We, in our day, are
attempting to incubate a salvation free from sorrow over sin
(cf. 2 Corinthians 7:10; Acts 3:19)…
and we are hatching half-baked fledglings, yard chickens, but no
eagles. Lowering the repentance flag to half mast may fill
our pews, but it will not populate Heaven. The Church is
bulging with sinners reformed, who have never been transformed. ‘Just as I
am’ is fine lyrics, but foreign to New Testament doctrine.
"But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O
generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath
to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for
repentance:" The doctrinal myth that one
may obtain CHRIST and retain his sin is
just that! John is
not suggesting sinless perfectionism (cf.
1 John 1:8, 10) but he is demanding sincere direction-ism
as evidence that you have been “born of
GOD”. Repentance is a change of mind and the
mind then makes up the U-Joint and drive shaft connecting the
heart and will.
The new
creature in CHRIST no longer finds sin even a passing pleasure,
he abhors it! Sin to him has become as horrible and
loathsome as Job’s boils. The true believer considers sin
his chief enemy, his greatest plague, his body of death.
"O wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" The
truly penitent person knows that his problem is not lack of
self-esteem, mistreatment, injustice, or some childhood trauma,
but sin. He hates sin because it dishonors the GOD whom he
loves ... and WHO first loved him.
This
view of sin is generally absent from a church today which wants
to erode holiness and push the envelope of decadence in every
direction. The Sardisites have risen to power on the
doctrine of the Pergamosites, and are practicing the morality of
the Thyatiraites. Meanwhile, outside the house of the
Laodiceans is the Great PHYSICIAN, nauseous
over the staggering rate of stillbirths across the board. (cf.
Revelation 2:12-3:6, 16).
"In this the children
of GOD are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of GOD ..."