“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.”
Matthew 4:16
Many people who come to the Lord later in life can tell you the difference it has made in their lives before and after. It is wonderful to listen to testimonies of such, they just SO glorify the Lord and leave one in awe. They will describe to you the picture of what they were, and then go on to tell you the impact the born-again experience had upon their lives. Alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, adulterers, liars - healed and set free. The born-again experience changes everything.
Every believer has a testimony, the story of what God did in their lives when they surrendered their lives to him. For anyone who does not have a story, I would suspect that they may not have truly been born again, because the very essence of the born-again experience is the change it makes in a person. The Gospel is a Gospel of the power of God, delivering one from darkness and birthing him into light.
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ,
for it is the POWER of God to salvation
for everyone who believes…”
Romans 1:16
We are born in a fallen human nature, into a fallen world, to fallen parents, educated by fallen teachers, and we have grown up with all the effects that the fallen world has had upon us, and - we are born sinners, every last one of us. As it is written:
“There is not one righteous, no not one.”
Romans 3:10
When a person is born again, he is taken out of the darkness of the world and transferred into the light of the Kingdom of God. His spirit which was dead because of the fall of mankind, is suddenly infused with light and life. It changes everything. He begins to notice that he no longer thinks the way he thought before, and there is a change in what interests him. He receives a totally new worldview because now he recognizes the darkness for what it is - and he can never again look at things from his old perspective.
The greatest change, though, is the power that the Word of God has upon him as he picks up the Bible and begins to read it daily. Suddenly it makes sense to him whereas before - it didn't. To someone who is not born again, the Bible can only be a book of history and pious platitudes. A person who is not born again may read the Word of God as literature or as history - he might even quote passages from the Bible as he might have quoted from any other book. But he remains in darkness, unable to “see.” Some say they don’t read the Bible because they don’t understand it – and that proves this point. A person who is not born again cannot “see.”
“Most assuredly, I say to you,
unless one is born again,
he CANNOT SEE the kingdom of God.”
Jesus -John 3:3
You will find that this is the way it is in many churches today. That’s why people in dead churches can call evil good and good evil. For example, they call perversion “love,” but that kind of love is only soulish, it has nothing to do with the Spirit of God, it is flesh, it is lust, it is corrupt. But they are not able to “see” that.
With the born-again experience on the other hand, the Word of God becomes life to him, changing him, guiding him, and affecting every area of his life. The Word of God will change the way a person perceives.
How can you tell whether a person is born again? It will be obvious in that person’s view of the Word of God, because the Word of God becomes life to one who is born again. The Spirit of God now dwelling in that person “convicts” him of sin, of deception, and shows him the truth. He will lose the old way of looking at things which was in conformity with the world’s views, and will realize he was deceived as he sees everything in a totally new light.
If you have not been born again, or worse - if you’re religious but suspect you have not been born again, then pray with me:
Father, I have thought all along that I have loved you, but now I realize that I see everything from the world’s point of view. My mind, my soul, has not been changed. I’ve agreed with those who justify their sin even using your Word to justify it. How awful! What I’m asking you Lord, is that if I’ve been deceived and have not truly been born again, please come into my life and change me through this life-giving experience. I realize it will change everything for me and that scares me, but it’s too important, how can anything be more important? I’m willing to give up and surrender my life to you. Please become my Savior, please become my Lord. I relinquish to you all my old way of thinking, all my wrong attitudes, every deception I have fallen for, all religious practices that I have trusted in, and I ask to see everything in the light of the truth. I surrender all Lord, please take me and make me yours.
“All to Jesus, I surrender, all to thee I freely give;
I will ever love and trust you, in your presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.”
More:
What did Jesus mean when he said,
“You MUST be born again?“
Has the Lord directed you to do something you feel totally inadequate to do? If so, know that you’re not alone. Gideon was working in the field when the Lord spoke to him words that totally shocked him: “And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!’” Judges 6:12 Gideon was stunned. “Who, ME? Mighty man of valor? That’s surely not me!” vs 14: “Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?’” So Gideon argues to the Lord what he felt the Lord should know. He told the Lord that he was very unqualified: vs 15: “So he said to Him, ‘O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’” But of course, the Lord wasn’t mistaken and he said to Gideon all that Gideon needed to know: vs 16: “And the Lord said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you…'” Something the Lord delights to do is to tell someone to do something that the person feels is way out of his league. In Exodus chapters 3 and 4 God speaks to Moses and tells him he’s being sent to bring the Jewish people out of bondage in Egypt: “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10 But Moses has the same reaction that Gideon did: vs 11: “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’” And the Lord tells Moses the same thing he told Gideon: vs 12: “So He said, ‘I will certainly be with you.'” But that wasn’t enough for Moses, he was shaking in his boots and he expressed his fear: “Then Moses answered and said, ‘But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, “The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ” Exodus 4:1 Let’s not be harsh with Moses, he was shocked at God’s directive that he go back to Egypt and bring them out. This was causing great anxiety in him, and he starts to tell God why this isn’t a good idea. He tells the Lord that words don’t come easily to him, and that no, this is not a good idea at all, Lord, please send someone else: “Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue... But he said, ‘O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send.’” At this point God becomes angry. He’s answered all his objections, but Moses is still asking to get out of this. vs 14: “So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses…” Moses realized it’s probably not a good idea to resist any longer, and he finally gave up and agreed to go. When the Lord tells a person what he wants that person to do, MOST of the time the person will feel unqualified to do it. And that’s by design. God does that on purpose so that it will be obvious that the mission is God’s doing, not the doing of the person he sends. The glory will go to God, MUST go to God, not to the person he sends. And because it is the Lord who sends a person to do something he feels unqualified to do, one can be sure that God will provide all that is needed to get the job done. It comes down to this: do you trust God, or don’t you? Later, when Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan, ten of them came back saying it can’t be done. They said there were giants in that land, (which was literally true) and that the cities were well fortified, and that there’s no way Israel could take that land. Only two of them, Joshua and Caleb, said that because God said he was giving them this land, then he surely is able to bring it about! Remember - this was after all the miraculous signs Israel had seen the Lord do when he brought them out of Egypt! Was parting the Red Sea not enough for them to trust him to bring about what he sends them to do? The Lord was so angry with the ten that he said that only Joshua and Caleb would ever see that land, the other ten would never see it! Has the Lord spoken to your heart something that you’re reluctant to do? Is there a call on your life which you have hung back from accepting? Don’t you realize that when God sends you to do something, that HE will cause that something to succeed? Have you made the mistake of hanging back because the call is to do something you know in yourself that you’re not up to? If so, then you’re judging it according to what YOU feel YOU can accomplish, not according to the understanding that when God tells someone to do a thing, it is HE, not YOU, that will make it succeed. Certainly you can ask for confirmation to make sure it IS God who is speaking to your heart. When you’re sure it is his will, do not come under the anger of God, do not resist when he calls. If you do, you will MISS what God had planned for your life. TRUST him, and do as he leads you. What he will do and how he will do it will absolutely amaze you. TRUST him!
"Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but they do not speak;
eyes they have, but they do not see;
they have ears, but they do not hear;
noses they have, but they do not smell;"
Psalm 115:4-6
When I was a child, I got up one night in the middle of the night and I went to the dresser and took down every statue I had there, and put them face down. This was so very vivid that all these years later I remember it as though it were yesterday. In the morning when I woke up I was appalled at what I had done, and very distressed at the insult to "the blessed virgin Mary." Little did I know that that was a prophetic event in my childhood showing that someday I would be led out of idolatry. At that time, I did not know the Word of God except for bits and pieces that I heard during the mass all those years. My church did not allow us to read the Bible, claiming that it was too difficult to understand and that an order of priests was given the responsibility to read and interpret it. Thus Satan kept us from the Word of God.
I had a second similar dream when I was a child, a dream which again, I remember as though it were yesterday. I dreamed that I was in church, and the large statue on the wall in front of me came crashing down. I was horrified. I woke up trembling.
Many years later, when I read the Bible for the first time, I was appalled to find the many contradictions between what I had been taught versus what the Word of God actually says. I was absolutely shocked to find that what I had been taught and what I believed was all wrong. My journey through the Word of God was something I could never have imagined, so eye-opening was it, it changed my whole life.
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image,
any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth;
YOU SHALL NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM
nor serve them." Exodus 20:4-5
I did not know when I took those statues down, that they were in direct violation of the commandment of God. Clearly, God states that to bow before statues is idolatry. His Word, the Bible, states repeatedly that ONLY GOD is to be bowed before. ONLY GOD is to be worshiped. ONLY GOD is to be consulted.
From reading the Bible for the first time and seeing that it spoke the opposite from what I had been taught, this led to a tremendous crisis of faith. To realize that what my religion taught contradicted what the Bible teaches - this discovery propelled me into a crisis unlike anything I had ever experienced in all my life. They couldn’t both be right, and one of them had to be very wrong and that eventually led to the point where I was forced to choose one and leave the other.
According to the second commandment in Exodus chapter 20, which the Catholic church removed, we are forbidden from bowing before any image, so it occurred to me that something must be wrong with the apparitions of "the blessed virgin Mary," because the apparition told those who saw it that they were to have a shrine built to her, and that they were to make medals of her. I wore three "scapulars," which were cloths one wore around the neck with images of "the blessed virgin Mary" on them, plus I wore the "Miraculous Medal" which was a medal which the apparition commanded to be worn, and then also the medal to Saint Christopher. I truly had CHAINS around my neck! After reading the Word of God, I knew those had to go, and I also knew the apparitions seen by many were not "the blessed virgin Mary," because the mother of Jesus would not have commanded that images of her be made and bowed before. Clearly the apparitions were not someone from heaven, and the implications of that were huge. Think about it!
As I progressed through the Word of God I learned that ONLY God is "omni-present." That means that ONLY the Spirit of God is everywhere and available to us. Mary is NOT "omni-present." She is NOT everywhere. She is in heaven and there she stays. She does NOT hear the prayers of the people on earth because she is NOT everywhere and neither are any of the so-called "saints." Saints are not "good" people who are declared "saints" by the Catholic church, that is heresy. The Bible says that the "saints" are the believers in Jesus Christ on earth who have been born again.
Friends, God created mankind and placed us on this earth. He did not then leave us saying, "So long, hope you make it." No, he has given us his Word. His Word ALONE contains the truth.
Every religion has its extra-Biblical version of "the truth." The Moslems have the Koran, the Jews have the Talmud, the Catholics have the Catechism, the Jehovah's Witnesses have the Watchtower, the Mormons have the Book of Mormon, and so on. These books are NOT sanctioned by almighty God, and in fact are Satan's COUNTERFEIT of the Word of God. Satan's number one goal is to keep people away from the Word of God, the Bible. ONLY the Bible is the Word of God, and every tenet taught by any religion which contradicts the Word of God is ...heresy, and more than that - they come under a CURSE. This is so important that the Word of God says it twice:
"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we have preached unto you, let him be ACCURSED.
As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be ACCURSED.
Galatians 1:8-9
Paul, who wrote a large part of the New Testament, never said a single word about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Not one word! And Peter - not one word. Those making her the "co-redemptrix" actually come under the curse. Those teaching people to bow before statues of her - come under the CURSE.
There is a question I have approached people with and have had mixed results because it's a hard one. The question is this: If the truth is something other than what you've been taught, would you want to know the truth - or would you want to remain with the traditions of your fathers?
Your answer will determine your eternity.
"Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
worthlessness and unprofitable things."
Jeremiah 16:19