In speaking to a friend over the last week, it came to my knowledge that she was very down because she was not able to cultivate a secure relationship with God; she has been a born again Christian for several years however admits to constantly slipping back into her old ways and finding it very difficult to find her way back to Christ. She explained that she loved the times when she was able to freely talk to God, feel Him all around and in her but didn't understand why she so easily slipps and even though she was convicted in her spirit that she was on a wrong path she found it difficult to move or adjust and rather dwelt there still feeling guilty and depressed.
WOW my heart went out to this young lady, I realised that the enemy has so many tricks up his sleeves in order to keep us bound, to halt our journey to a purpose fulfilling life; we spoke at great length and this sister rededicated her life to God (glory to the Most High) and has now started again on this journey.
It is this journey I want to discuss with you today. Being born again is not a destination but rather a journey that we all need to work pretty hard at if we are to get to the actual destination, which is Heaven. The day that we receive salvation it's as though we received a new lease of life and some people go all out, think back to the weeks or months immediately after you gave you life to Christ, I bet you were on FIRE for God, I mean the kind of fire that people had to stand a great distance from in order not to get burnt ;-). By God's grace I'm sure the fire is still going but if we are truthful with ourselves we will see that whilst we may not have slipped as far into luke-warmness as we could, our fire is not burning as bright as it once did!
When we become born again and we receive the gift of salvation, our journey begins, it is not the time for us to merely sit back and say “great I’m now saved, onward and upward for me”, we will remain as we were unless we work our salvation out. Please don’t misunderstand me, salvation is a gift that God in His mercy grants to all who are willing and ready to confess Christ as their Lord and personal Saviour, however we now have to work out our salvation. We cannot remain as we were once born again, at first we will be feed the word of God (as hopefully we have found a bible believing, spirit filled church home), after a while though we will need to start reading the word, speaking TO the word, hearing FROM the word ourselves, the WORD is Christ Jesus, basically we need to begin to cultivate a relationship with Christ for ourselves. Its great that we have Christian friends and pastors, mentors etc who will help to explain things to us etc but the best teacher is Christ through His word and the Holy Spirit but if we don’t know Christ personally FOR OURSELVES we will not be able to speak to Him or hear FROM him.
If we have been born again for a while and are still in the same place as we were that first day, we need to check ourselves. Lets check ourselves by seeing how often we read, mediate and practise the word of God if not enough, lets dig deeper; by checking around us to see if we are in the same (perhaps) non-Christian crowd that we were in before we were born again; lets check the words that come out of our mouths and the thoughts that enter our heads, are we aware enough to put a stop to ungodly words or thoughts, aware enough to know which people we need to move away from until we are strong enough to influence them.
This journey is not an easy one, but it is doable and very worthwhile and so long as we strive to remain in God’s presence, follow His words and leadings of the Holy Spirit the destination is attainable. Please never be so disheartened when you step of the path of righteousness that you think you are not worth enough for God to have saved you; it is not so, you are so worthwhile to God that He is ready and willing to leave the estimated 2 billion Christians in the world today just to find YOU at the times when you feel lost. Don’t give up, keep pressing forward and always find time to talk to and hear from God…..He is always close be.
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