The other day in the small group I attended there was a discussion about the nature of salvation. One man noted that when we ask people to “pray a prayer” to receive Christ it seems that in some ways it may be that we are making it too simply. As we have looked for a church over the last few years, that struggle has been something I have also become familiar with. To me, it seems in many cases Baptist simply ask for someone to pray a prayer and then don’t follow up very well in calling the person to discipleship. While, the Methodist churches I have been in seem to make it more about a process and never seem to call a person to make a decision. One seems too simply, the other too drawn out. So, who is right?
Let me backtrack a little a share a story with you, back in 2005, I was a pastor of small church in West Virginia. I call it “the church that enjoyed hurting me”. It was a church where the previous pastor was very different from me. The church seemed to have trouble dealing with that adjustment as much as I did. They seemed very critical. Some of the criticism came from the deacons and leaders who I thought had my back. Then, one night the youth leadership told me that a young man had given his heart to the Lord. After dealing with people who claimed to be “saved” and yet lived like Satan’s spawn I wasn’t that excited to hear that. In fact, I wasn’t joyful about it at all. I took the attitude, “Okay, we will see if it lasts”. Which was the wrong attitude for me to have. But, I was tired of seeing so called Christians who didn’t walk the talk.
The pastor’s wife in the church we attend now is very pregnant. In fact, she is due in about two weeks, but it would not be a surprise to see her go into labor beforehand. I thought about that and how Jesus refers to salvation as being “born again”. In John 3:5 it says, “Jesus answered “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” So, is being born an event or it is a process? It would appear to be born it is both. Labor and being born are both a process of many months, but there is a definite period when there is a birth.
I think people can get stuck though once they are born and not develop correctly. They become saved and satisfied with where they are. We shouldn’t confuse this with the sometimes painful slow process of sanctification. Just like when you put a seed into the ground, you don’t expect the plant to bear out of the ground and bloom on the same day. In fact, it would be foolish of me to stand over a seed and yell at it because it hadn’t bloomed yet. It takes time and from what I have seen, growth is best seen in retrospect.
When I was little, my grandparents would sometimes come to visit on holidays. They would look at me at the airport or once we got home and remark about how much I had grown. I would look at them like they were crazy. I had not noticed the growth because I was there everyday. But, growth did occur because over the years clothing became too small and shoes too little. I didn’t see it because it was so slow, but it was there. Likewise, I think sometimes spiritual growth is often small steps that lead to big paths. We can get caught up in trying to look like other believers or comparing ourselves to others. But, God doesn’t want us to do that. He wants us to realize that he is causing the growth in us. And he causes the growth in order that we might bear fruit. Talk about this in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labors.:
Let me backtrack a little a share a story with you, back in 2005, I was a pastor of small church in West Virginia. I call it “the church that enjoyed hurting me”. It was a church where the previous pastor was very different from me. The church seemed to have trouble dealing with that adjustment as much as I did. They seemed very critical. Some of the criticism came from the deacons and leaders who I thought had my back. Then, one night the youth leadership told me that a young man had given his heart to the Lord. After dealing with people who claimed to be “saved” and yet lived like Satan’s spawn I wasn’t that excited to hear that. In fact, I wasn’t joyful about it at all. I took the attitude, “Okay, we will see if it lasts”. Which was the wrong attitude for me to have. But, I was tired of seeing so called Christians who didn’t walk the talk.
The pastor’s wife in the church we attend now is very pregnant. In fact, she is due in about two weeks, but it would not be a surprise to see her go into labor beforehand. I thought about that and how Jesus refers to salvation as being “born again”. In John 3:5 it says, “Jesus answered “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” So, is being born an event or it is a process? It would appear to be born it is both. Labor and being born are both a process of many months, but there is a definite period when there is a birth.
I think people can get stuck though once they are born and not develop correctly. They become saved and satisfied with where they are. We shouldn’t confuse this with the sometimes painful slow process of sanctification. Just like when you put a seed into the ground, you don’t expect the plant to bear out of the ground and bloom on the same day. In fact, it would be foolish of me to stand over a seed and yell at it because it hadn’t bloomed yet. It takes time and from what I have seen, growth is best seen in retrospect.
When I was little, my grandparents would sometimes come to visit on holidays. They would look at me at the airport or once we got home and remark about how much I had grown. I would look at them like they were crazy. I had not noticed the growth because I was there everyday. But, growth did occur because over the years clothing became too small and shoes too little. I didn’t see it because it was so slow, but it was there. Likewise, I think sometimes spiritual growth is often small steps that lead to big paths. We can get caught up in trying to look like other believers or comparing ourselves to others. But, God doesn’t want us to do that. He wants us to realize that he is causing the growth in us. And he causes the growth in order that we might bear fruit. Talk about this in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labors.:
