Cultured or Converted
We come into the Kingdom of God, not through evolution, but by revolution. There are some who feel that they can become part of the Kingdom by exposing themselves week by week to the activities of the Christian Church and its teaching-Salvation by Osmosis. A friend of mine calls such people 'cultured Christians'. They have all the appearance of being genuine children of God, but they have never personally undergone the life-changing experience which the Bible calls conversion.
Why is it that so many struggle against Christ's insistence on repentance as being the first prerequisite to the
Kingdom of God? Is it not that the first instinctive reaction of the human heart is to raise up barriers against
an intruder? Christ demands to be admitted on His own terms in our lives, and this, of course, runs diametrically opposite to the self-centred instinct which lies deep within our beings. We struggle to preserve our ego intact, and avoid anything that challenges the pride principle that has entwined itself about our nature.
We fear 'lest having Him we have naught else beside'.
Let there be no doubt about it-the only way into the Kingdom of God is when we repent out sin, and allow God to bring us into His Kingdom by the miracle of Conversion. And what is Conversion? Someone has defined it as 'The change, sudden or gradual, by which we pass from the kingdom of self into the Kingdom of God'. May I sincerely ask whether this has happened to you? Skepsis
We come into the Kingdom of God, not through evolution, but by revolution. There are some who feel that they can become part of the Kingdom by exposing themselves week by week to the activities of the Christian Church and its teaching-Salvation by Osmosis. A friend of mine calls such people 'cultured Christians'. They have all the appearance of being genuine children of God, but they have never personally undergone the life-changing experience which the Bible calls conversion.
Why is it that so many struggle against Christ's insistence on repentance as being the first prerequisite to the
Kingdom of God? Is it not that the first instinctive reaction of the human heart is to raise up barriers against
an intruder? Christ demands to be admitted on His own terms in our lives, and this, of course, runs diametrically opposite to the self-centred instinct which lies deep within our beings. We struggle to preserve our ego intact, and avoid anything that challenges the pride principle that has entwined itself about our nature.
We fear 'lest having Him we have naught else beside'.
Let there be no doubt about it-the only way into the Kingdom of God is when we repent out sin, and allow God to bring us into His Kingdom by the miracle of Conversion. And what is Conversion? Someone has defined it as 'The change, sudden or gradual, by which we pass from the kingdom of self into the Kingdom of God'. May I sincerely ask whether this has happened to you? Skepsis
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