God requires a change To be a true Christian, a person must take a critical step: He or she must truly repent. After the apostle Peters powerful sermon on the day the New Testament Church began, many were cut to the heart when they recognized that it was their sins for which Jesus was crucified (Acts 2:37). Regeneration Regeneration means that there has been an actual change in a person. When someone becomes a Christian by trusting in the sacrifice of Christ alone for the forgiveness of his sins, then the Holy Spirit has come and lives in that person. Because the person has been changed from the inside, he does not desire to do those things that are contrary to God. Therefore, he will naturally desire to go to church. He will desire to be good, to be honest, etc. He does not go to church, or be good, or be honest, in order to be a Christian. He does those things because he already is one. It means that those things he desires to do change. He wants to change and wants to please God -- from the inside. So, being a Christian means that you have encountered the true and living God and that you have undergone a change in your heart and soul. It means that you are not restricted to the Laws of right and wrong in order to please God because you cannot please God by what you do. God will only find pleasure in you through Jesus Christ. Christians who believe the above points, yes, but we have a living and open relationship with the Lord Jesus. We experience Him through His indwelling Spirit. As Christians, we seek to do the will of the Lord, to follow in His footsteps, and to honor and glorify God in all he does. It is not necessary as a Christian to perform good works IN ORDER to please God because, first of all, our good deeds are but filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6) and, most important, we are made righteous in the eyes of God by the finished work of Jesus on the cross (Rom. 5). This is one of the areas where the cults error. They confuse good works with the forgiveness of sins. They combine the two and teach that God will not accept us if we are not trying to be good. Because they have a wrong view of who Jesus is, they have a wrong view of salvation. A common objection to this doctrine of justification by faith is that if a Christian believes in God the way I say, then he does not need to do anything good, that he could then go out and sin all he wanted. First of all, this objection is answered in Romans 6. We are not saved for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification (1 Thess. 4:7). We do not use the grace of God to sin. Second, a Christian is called to be Holy (1 Pet. 1:16). Third, a Christian is called to do good works (Eph. 2:10); it is just that these works are not combined with our faith to merit the forgiveness of our sins. They are, instead, a natural result of our saved condition; we do good works because we are Christians, not to become Christians. Additionally, being a Christian means that you are serving the true Jesus, not a false one. In order for a person to follow Jesus, he must first accurately understand who He is. If someone called their pet iguana Jesus, even though he had great faith in Jesus the iguana, his faith is useless. Faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 22:21:19 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015