Search this book
“After thinking about it for three days, I realized I needed Jesus Christ, and I accepted Him. Now that my life has been turned over to Jesus Christ, I can function with an extra power bestowed by God.”
Who made a statement like that? Someone down on the bottom of life’s heap, struggling for worth and identity? No. A handsome young University of Southern California athlete, John Naber, who gained international attention by earning four gold medals with his swimming achievements in the 1976 Olympics. Naber said he was searching for something meaningful in his life and after attending one of our meetings he began to wake up to the realization of Jesus Christ. He was born again.
More and more celebrities, especially in the sports, entertainment, and political worlds, are telling of their new experiences of being made alive in Christ. While it is thrilling to hear about it, there are also dangers (as I have already expressed) in a “novice” who has very little grounding in the Word of God. Yet I cannot help rejoicing in every one of them and believe that God has been moving mightily in reaching out for people of extraordinary gifts and talents all over the world. Many of them He is greatly using to win others to Christ. A newspaper feature said that “Evidence of a current religious revival is everywhere,” and then related how famous personalities were “pinpointing the exact moment of spiritual turn-around” with their “often unbelievable accounts of being born again. Some say they have met Jesus Christ. Others experience a sensation similar to an electric shock. In all cases the new believers experience overwhelming feelings of love and joy.”
Dean Jones, a Walt Disney film veteran, relates, “I was performing in summer stock at a New Jersey lodge and had gone to my room to be alone. Nothing was satisfying me. I looked out that window and felt fear and confusion. Impulsively, I knelt by the bed and spelled out my doubts to God; I don’t know why I was moved to do this. I said to God, ‘If You bring meaning to my life, I’ll serve You.’”
There is nothing more exciting than a personal testimony from a person who has experienced a spiritual rebirth. This is more than an interesting story or fascinating experience. A newborn man or woman has been given so many riches by God. We will outline them and then discuss how to draw from that wealthy potential.
Forgiven!
“Your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). What a stupendous promise! Throughout the New Testament we learn that the one who receives Christ as Lord and Savior also receives, immediately, the gift of forgiveness. The Bible says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).
“Forgive me.” “I’m sorry.” “I didn’t mean it.” How often we use those words and they echo back with a hollow sound. But God’s forgiveness is not just a casual statement; it is the complete blotting out of all the dirt and degradation of our past, present, and future. The only reason our sins can be forgiven is because Jesus Christ paid their full penalty on the cross.
Guilt feelings provide the basis for many dramatic plots. Shakespeare’s line from Macbeth is famous: “Out, damned spot! Out!” Guilt feelings are the focal point of much psychiatric counseling. Many feel like Judas, who, after he betrayed Christ, said, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” So tremendous is the weight of our guilt that the great and glorious concept of forgiveness should be shouted by every believer in Jesus Christ.
God’s goodness in forgiving us goes even farther when we realize that when we are converted we are also declared just—which means that in God’s sight we are without guilt, clothed forever with Christ’s righteousness.
As we saw in “The King’s Courtroom,” forgiveness and justification are God’s free gifts.
Adopted by the King
When you were converted, God adopted you as His son or daughter. As an adopted child each of us can claim to be a joint heir with Jesus Christ. “God sent forth His Son . . . that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).
I know a lawyer and his wife who have two adopted children, a boy and a girl. The little girl looks very much like her mother, and the young man could easily be the natural son of his father. The fact that they were chosen by their parents has given them a great sense of security and love.
To be the son or daughter of the Lord of the universe is a powerful realization.
The Indwelling Holy Spirit
When you were converted, the Spirit of God immediately came to live in you. Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus Christ said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth . . . you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
When Christ lived on this earth, He could be with only a small group of people at any one time. Now Christ dwells through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all those who have received Him as Lord and Savior. Lloyd Ogilvie, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, refers to the Holy Spirit as “the contemporary Christ.” Paul wrote to the Romans, “He [God] will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).
At the historic Congress on World Evangelization in Switzerland in 1974, the Holy Spirit was the subject of many addresses and discussions. The Reverend Gottfried Osei-Mensah of Nairobi, Kenya, said, “The Spirit is our Master. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, living in us, to free us from the rule of sin in our daily lives, and to help us live the new life we share with Christ.”
How long does the Holy Spirit live in the heart of a believer? Forever. God does not give a gift as powerful as the Holy Spirit and then take it back. By faith you accept God’s statements that you are indwelt by the Spirit of God, but you can watch Him at work, too. The Holy Spirit can rejuvenate a tired Christian, captivate an indifferent believer, and empower a dry church.
A clergyman from Buenos Aires, Argentina, said, “The Holy Spirit today is renewing the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace. All those things are going to be the elements that show the world that we are His people.”
The Holy Spirit is there to give you special power to work for Christ. He is there to give you strength in the moment of temptation.
Jesus promised that we would receive power from the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). Perhaps you have heard the story of the woodpecker who was pecking with his beak against the trunk of a tree. At that very moment, the lightning struck the tree, splitting it from top to bottom. When he’d recovered from the shock, the woodpecker flew away exclaiming, “I didn’t know there was so much power in my beak!” I don’t ask you, have you the Holy Spirit, but does the Holy Spirit have you?
Victory Over Temptation
The Bible teaches that the new believer in Jesus Christ—the converted person—is to “abhor what is evil” (Rom. 12:9). Here is another strong admonishment, “in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit” (Eph. 4:22).
Now wait a minute. How are we supposed to be able to stop doing some of the sinful things we have done for years, or get rid of some of the negative, suspicious, hateful, greedy attitudes which are ingrained in our personality? “I just can’t do it myself,” you might say.
You’re right. However, the capacity to resist sin and obey God comes from the Holy Spirit, who lives in every true believer. It’s not up to us to struggle against temptation alone. God lives in our hearts to help us resist sin. It is His job to work and our job to yield.
What about the old bugaboo of temptation? The Bible doesn’t say we won’t be tempted; that would be foolish. We know that we live in a world full of temptations, most of them tied up in very attractive packages and offered as something we must try or buy—just once! But the converted man or woman has the offer of victory over temptation. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
To be tempted is not a sin; as a believer in Jesus Christ you do not need to blame yourself for an increase in the temptations that surround you. The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us strength to resist temptation.
Temptation is very powerful and will become even more so after you have been born again. The Scriptures tell us that we are in a spiritual warfare and that our enemies have more power and skill to tempt us than we have ever encountered before. Here is where many new believers make a big mistake. They think that when they are converted they will become perfect right away, that they will live on a continual high. Then they find themselves being tempted, in conflict, and even at times yielding to temptation. The new believer takes a look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. He is filled with discouragement and frustration. This is normal. The devil tempts you and God tests you. Often they are two sides to the same coin—God allows the devil to tempt you, and He uses it as a test, or as an experience to help deepen your faith and let you see how fragile you really are if you depend on yourself. He wants you to depend totally and completely on Him.
An old allegory illustrates this well:
Satan called together a council of his servants to consult how they might make a good man sin. One evil spirit started up and said, ‘I will make him sin.’—‘How will you do it?’ asked Satan. ‘I will set before him the pleasures of sin,’ was the reply; ‘I will tell him of its delights, and the rich rewards it brings.’—‘Ah,’ said Satan, ‘that will not do; he has tried it, and knows better than that.’ Then another imp started up and said, ‘I will make him sin.’—‘What will you do?’ asked Satan. ‘I will tell him of the pains and sorrows of virtue. I will show him that virtue has no delights, and brings no rewards.’—‘Ah, no!’ exclaimed Satan, ‘that will not do at all; for he has tried it, and knows that “Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”’—‘Well,’ said another imp, starting up, ‘I will undertake to make him sin.’—‘And what will you do?’ asked Satan, again. ‘I will discourage his soul,’ was the short reply. ‘Ah, that will do!’ cried Satan; ‘That will do! We shall conquer him now.’”1
Spiritual conflict is at work in the heart of every believer. It is true that the Christian possesses a new nature, but the old sin nature is still there. It is now up to us, day by day, to yield to the new nature which Christ dominates.
There is the story of a housewife who found a mouse in her kitchen and took a broom to it. The mouse didn’t waste its time contemplating either the housewife or the broom, but got busy looking for the hole. And so it is with us when we are caught by temptation. We don’t spend time contemplating the temptation but get busy looking for a way out. The Scripture says, “God . . . will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also” (1 Cor. 10:13).
When the Christian sins he is miserable. Sometimes he avoids other Christians, stops going to church, believes that he is misunderstood. However, every Christian has access to God through prayer, and when he confesses his sin, God restores fellowship with him. This is the difference between the believer and the unbeliever. The unbeliever makes sin a practice; the believer does not.
A word about how believers should treat a “fallen” brother: Some years ago we knew a young college student recently converted from a life of drugs. Shortly after his conversion he agreed to turn informer for a narcotics agent in order to try to catch the pushers in that area. Fellow Christians warned him against doing this, but he had already committed himself and the inevitable happened. He blew his Christian witness when he had to pretend to be a drug user himself in order to convince the pusher that he was for real, at one point having to take two shots of heroin. (Incidentally, the shots had an effect on him opposite to that before his conversion—instead of getting high he had violent withdrawals.) The Sunday before he left the school to return to his home, he stood up before the Sunday school class to tell them what had happened. The pusher had been caught, and although this young man had blown his Christian witness, he wanted the students to know that he was still a believer and a follower of the Lord. He stood up before the class, holding two fingers together to explain, “Me and Jesus are just like this.” This gave the teacher an opportunity to talk to the students on how a brother should be treated when he has apparently fallen. During the time when he was trying to assist the narcotics agent, all the Christians on campus thought he had backslidden and gave him the cold shoulder. Actually, when we see a brother fall (or one whom we think has fallen), we should, like the Good Samaritan, get down and help him up again and do what we can to encourage him, pray for him, and let him know that we love him and believe in him.
The believer hates sin and wants to abide by God’s commands. Paul says believers “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4). The Holy Spirit who indwells us convicts us in various ways. A believer will begin to realize that the dirty jokes which were once a part of his office repertoire are sticking in his throat. The cocktail parties which were once so interesting and funny have become dull and boring. Ruth and I have sometimes gone to cocktail parties in various parts of the world. Always we have taken a soft drink and tried to be a witness. The first convert of the New York crusade was a direct result of my going to a cocktail party like this on board a ship coming from Japan in the early 1950s. Such occasions may afford a great opportunity for Christian witness. We have often had a whole group of people gather around us and ask spiritual questions. In this same way Jesus talked with publicans and sinners, and for a clear purpose. On the other hand, going to cocktail parties just to be one of the gang not only often becomes boring, but carries the painful risk of hearing someone swear and take the name of the Lord in vain.
The choices of a new believer are made from a new perspective. He may hand himself over to sin (and feel miserable in it) or give himself over to God. Paul’s advice is excellent: “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).
The transformation by the “renewing of your mind” may happen quickly and dramatically, as the addict who experiences instant withdrawal, or it may permeate into your lifestyle more gradually.
Growing Slowly, Almost Imperceptibly—But Growing!
Many people grow into Christian maturity very rapidly; others much more slowly, almost imperceptibly. I once saw a picture on television of flowers growing, budding, and opening. This was done by slow-motion photography over a long period of time. If you had watched the same process with your naked eye in your garden it would have taken days. In the same way, we watch our lives from day to day and often get discouraged at the slow growth. But if you wait for a year or two and then look back over your life you will see how much you have grown. You’ve become kinder, more gracious, more loving. You love the Scriptures more. You love to pray more. You are a more faithful witness. You never will reach that point of full maturity in Christ until you see Him face to face in heaven.
Abrupt or gradual, the changes in a converted person are a part of his growth. He is not reborn full-grown; rather he is reborn with the energies of a new life that will mature him as time passes. This growth is spiritual and moral. It’s just like a baby learning to crawl, then toddle, then walk, then run. It takes time, study, patience, and discipline.
A person can attempt to imitate Christian growth by religious effort, but the result is like a plaster of Paris model of Michelangelo’s David. It’s phony and easily broken.
A Christian grows as the life of God exerts its new power from deep in the center of his personality. The unconverted person cannot duplicate that life, no matter how religious he tries to act. He lacks the sources for growth because he has not been reborn.
A group of students at Harvard once tried to fool the famous professor of zoology Agassiz. They took parts from a number of different bugs and with great skill attached them together to make a creation they were sure would baffle their teacher. On the chosen day they brought it to him and asked that he identify it. As he inspected it with great care, the students grew more and more sure they had tricked this genius.
Finally, Professor Agassiz straightened up and said, “I have identified it.” Scarcely able to control their amusement, they asked its name. Agassiz replied, “It is a humbug.”
A person with genuine life from God will detect the counterfeit and think, Humbug.
The new convert is a babe in Christ. A babe must be nourished in order to grow. He must be protected because he has been born into a world of many enemies. His primary battle will be with “the world,” “the flesh,” and “the devil.” This is why he needs the encouragement of his family, Christian friends, and especially the Church. At the time of birth the child of God is born into great riches, and has a marvelous inheritance, but it takes some time to find out about all his wealth.
The most important thing in the beginning of new life is to be nourished and strengthened. Here are the important nutrients to use.
Get a Bible
If you have a Bible, fine. If the Scriptures are a whole new world to you, however, I would advise that you get one of the newer translations which may be easier for you to understand. It is important for you to begin reading the New Testament, and the Gospel of John is a good place to start.
Saturate yourself in the Word of God. Don’t worry about understanding everything you read, because you won’t. Pray before you read and ask the Holy Spirit to clarify what you are reading. The Scriptures are the greatest source of hope you will find in this hopeless world. “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
Memorize portions of the Word of God. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps. 119:11, KJV). Try taking a Bible verse that speaks to your needs and typing it on a file card. Put it in your pocket or purse and refer to it frequently. Review it daily, and by the end of the week you will have a verse memorized.
Satan is the great discourager. He doesn’t want you to read the Bible or memorize Scripture. In the past you may not have been attacked by Satan, but now you’ve done something which makes him very angry. You’ve left his camp and joined the army of God. You’re a Christian soldier and Satan will unleash all of his secret weapons. From now on it’s upstream all the way against the current of the evils of this world.
But you can overcome everything he hurls at you with the weapon God has provided—“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). Not only is the Word of God a sword to be used in offense, but you also have a shield to be used in defense. You have “the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Eph. 6:16, KJV).
When Christ was in the wilderness He was tempted by Satan, and every time he met temptation with Scripture, saying, “It is written” (Matt. 4).
Christ needed this mighty weapon and so do we.
Learn to Pray
There are complete books written about prayer, seminars held which deal in prayer, and hundreds of sermons on the power of prayer. The new believer is sometimes baffled by what and how to pray.
The Bible says, “Men ought always to pray” (Luke 18:1, KJV). The apostle Paul said, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).
A prayer does not have to be eloquent or contain the language and terms of a theologian. When you made your decision for Christ, you were given the privilege of addressing God as Father. You pray to Him as a child talking to his loving and gracious father. In the beginning you may not be fluent, but it’s important to begin. My wife has a notebook she has kept of our children as they were beginning to talk with us. She treasures these first attempts, mistakes and all. She said, “I wouldn’t take anything for that book.”
When Paul said we should pray without “ceasing,” he chose a term used in his day to describe a persistent cough. Off and on, throughout our day we should be turning quickly to God to praise and thank Him, and to ask for His help. Prayers should be specific. God is interested in everything you do and nothing is too great or too insignificant to share with Him.
Find Christian Fellowship
God doesn’t intend for you to live the Christian life alone. This is why He has brought other believers together to form fellowships. A church where the Bible is taught and believed is the first place a reborn man or woman must seek. I do not advise that just any church will do. Is the pastor teaching the Word of God or expounding his own or some other philosophy of living? You’ll know. Does the church have Bible classes for all ages?
Without the fellowship of believers, a newly born Christian has a tendency to wither. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (Heb. 10:24-25).
Perhaps there’s a Bible class or prayer group in your community. It’s exciting to find a whole new set of friends, people who are in various stages of their own Christian growth, to share with and strengthen your faith.
One of my daughters lives in a high middle-class neighborhood. Some of the social leaders of the city are her neighbors. After a great deal of prayer she decided that she would go to her neighbors’ houses and ask them if they would like to have a Bible study. She knocked on the door of house after house, and in almost every instance the women not only said “yes,” but some of them burst into tears and said, “I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me to a Bible class so I could learn the Bible.” Today, my daughter teaches a weekly Bible class of three hundred women, with many on the waiting list to get in. If there’s not a Bible class in your community, perhaps you could start one. You will find your neighbors “hungrier” and “thirstier” than you had ever dreamed. They are just waiting for someone to take the initiative. At first it may be that only two or three of you will meet, read a passage in the Bible, discuss it, and have prayer over a cup of coffee. There are tens of thousands of such Bible classes springing up throughout the world in homes, in offices, in professional football teams. Even the touring golf professionals have a weekly Bible class that attracts anywhere from ten to fifty of the golfers and their wives.
You are no longer alone. The fatherhood of God forms the true brotherhood of man, an ideal which the philosophers and moralists have sought from the beginning of time. This brotherhood erases barriers of language, cultural background, and race. One of the greatest joys a Christian experiences is that of meeting a fellow believer in an unexpected place. The waitress in the restaurant finds a common bond with her customer. The passenger on an airplane discovers that the stewardess is a believer. You are in a foreign country and immediately feel at home when you encounter another Christian. No lengthy introductions are necessary. You share the greatest bond on earth. There is no fellowship on earth to compare with it.
At the beginning of this book I said that I believed the most important subject in the entire world is that of the new birth. It is the most important event which can happen to any man, woman, or child.
It is only when you are born again that you can experience all the riches God has in store for you. You are not just a living person, you are truly ALIVE!