The following is a daily devotional copied verbatim from the January 10th page of
My Utmost for His Highest. I found it very thought provoking.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the statement, "When a person fails in his personal Christian life, it is usually because he has never
received anything." The first time I read it, I wondered if he was using the word "fails" as a replacement for the word "sin", but the more I thought about it the more I don't think so. I think Chambers was referring to a complete failure in your Christian life. A turning and walking away from what you professed. I think that's much more inline with the context of this passage and the Word.
The second passage that really hit me was, "Conversion is not regeneration." My first thought here was, "Whoa...It's not?" However, the way he defines
conversion he's right. He's seeing conversion as the decision of the individual to decide to follow Christ. You can make the decision and never be born again, but I don't think you can be born again without making the decision.
What Chambers seems to be warning against is the idea of people saying, "Yes, I'm going to be a Christian." without ever fully coming to the Lord broken and receiving forgiveness of our sins.
The last paragraph is convicting for me. I still have so much to learn about the person of Christ. I have so much to learn about deliberately giving up myself to Christ and identifying solely with Him.
5 comments:
"I do not think it is too broad a statement to say that the majority of so-called Christians are like this. Their eyes are open, but they have received nothing."
I would have to agree. There is a staggering statistic that states that something like 80% of all Americans consider themselves to be "Christians". However, many of these people have only an awareness of Jesus Christ as being the key to thier faith, but not truly recieving His gifts of salvation, redemption, and purification.
"Conversion is not regeneration". Well, that depends on each individual: it can be a package deal, but I agree. It's not one in the same. The definition of regeneration is "a spiritual renewal or revival" (according to Webster's Dictionary). To simply convert and say, "I am no longer a Muslim, but I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus was the son of God, and I'm going to do everything I can to live a good life according to what is moral and just" is simply a declaration of your "religion". That is not regeneraton. But if you say "I no longer am a Jew because I believe that Jesus is the son of God, and He came to this earth to die for MY sins, and I outrightly accept Him as my Lord and savior and willingly give my life over to Him to change me and use me in whatever capacity He will to further His Kingdom", well then you've just experienced a conversion of religion/faith, and an awakening of your spirit (regeneration).
Wow Luke: I have this book sitting at home collecting dust on my nightstand. I think I'll be joining you in morning devotionals from this book. Thanks for always being a reminder of the things so very necessary to my Christian walk.
Great book and great things to ponder. I have nothing to add Luke, Chambers hit it on the head and you did a great job disceting it.
whoa...Katie...You have nothing to add? I'm not sure what that means...either I'm honored that you think I covered it that well, or else I did a poor job of invoking thought! ;)
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to check it out. :)
I agree very much with the view he presents on "Christians." I believe that just calling on Christ and being done with it doesn't make you a Christian at all. There must be fruit and change signifying that we've gone through a Biblical conversion (whether defined as regeneration or not... I kinda like) and received such an undeserved incredible gift, salvation. I really like how he defines this change as a realization that we've received something. When we realize what we've received we can't help but follow, albeit often stumbling in our unworthiness. Thank God for the grace he then provides.
Justin: I loved the last paragraph on grace! Thank God for it.
Post a Comment