What comes First

[Smalcald]

How do we explain people looking for Christ, like some people that are here on this forum from time to time, that obviously are looking but havent found.

All they need to know can be found here sooner or later.

These people are actively looking, so why have they not experienced the conversion of accepting Christ?

Do you think it has something to do with what you are saying?

HI mike2,

No problem on the quoting, I do the same thing.

Certainly people feel like they are looking for Christ and they are, but that is the power of the Holy Spirit calling them and pushing them, it is God in them not them. Why would anyone look for an invisible being or believe in a corpse that rose from the dead and people believe is God? It makes no sense, unless that being which is inside of them is really true and real, which it is! CS Lewis said our faith has that peculiar ring of truth that real things do have. Part of faith paradoxically is our realization that we could not have made this up ourselves, that we are not just desperate and scared (although we are), there are many other things to believe and do if we are just desperate and scared. No, anyone who even considers Christ as a possibility in their life as even remotely true, has the Holy Spirit working in them already. Thus when we hear and see atheists or seekers, or agnostics, on this board, I have no doubt in my mind the Holy Spirit is in them. Now they still have the ability as we did, to push it away, to cover their ears so to speak and pretend they don't hear the call, but it is there for them. Our role is to be faithful, to spread the Gospel to them, to be vessels for the Gospel.

I don't want to deny anyone's experience or walk with God, or the process they experienced in conversion, but it is important to give the glory only to Christ, and I think we all realize that is true, it is really semantics more than anything.

I find it tremendously comforting that the faith that I have is something that I did not create, nor thought out, nor reasoned out on my own, nor does it depend on my own feelings, nor does it depend on any special born again experience, or intuition or anything of my own, but totally and simply depends only on the Holy Spirit creating this faith in me.

[hebrews_beauty]

Salvation is the result of becoming Christian, of receiving and trusting in Christ. While salvation is the central start of our faith, it may not be the first or only reason someone chooses to follow Jesus. Someone may have just learned about God's love and wanted to know Him, for example,...so they receive Christ, and receive salvation in the process. Salvation is not the only reason to be Christian---I'm Christian because I believe Christ is true, because God changes lives, because there is evidence for biblical truth, because I want to grow to be all God created me to be, etc...

Hope that helps.

[Smalcald]

You are Christian because the Holy Spirit is in your body creating faith through the Gospel. Everything you mentioned flows from that. You trust and receive Christ because Christ forced Himself upon you, not because of any decision you made, it is not about our decision, and we must get that out of our head because a decision is a work.

It is a works based philosophy to say that faith has anything to do with reception, or choice, or logic, or ANYTHING that we can do ourselves.

When we have this implanted faith we will necessarily act in a certain way, be a certain type of person, but it will be God doing that, not us. Of course as Paul said if we don't change if we show nothing, if we do not want to lead a life pleasing to Christ, then we do not have the Holy Spirit, nor do we have faith.

[David from New Bern]

The clearest and most simpliest case of conversion was the thief on the cross. The reason I say this, there was no aisle to walk, no church to join, no baptism service to participate in, no sinners' prayer that had been written in the back of a tract, and no altar call extended. So what happened to the repentant thief that did not happen to the unrepentant thief? The repentant thief suddenly had an accurate assessment of who he was and an accurate view of who Jesus was. At the moment of this revelation he understood that he did not deserve paradise so he knew he needed mercy. Apparently having been exposed to the teachings of John the baptist or Jesus Himself he used the language of "remember me, when you come into your Kingdom."

In the modern age we have put so much value in our evangelistic props and cliche's and directed decisional theology we have muddied the waters with attachments and removed the supernatural element of revelation. The thief had a revelation much like Peter had when Jesus asked him, "who do you say I am?"........."Peter, flesh and blood have not revealed that to you!"

[mike2]

You are Christian because the Holy Spirit is in your body creating faith through the Gospel. Everything you mentioned flows from that. You trust and receive Christ because Christ forced Himself upon you, not because of any decision you made, it is not about our decision, and we must get that out of our head because a decision is a work.

It is a works based philosophy to say that faith has anything to do with reception, or choice, or logic, or ANYTHING that we can do ourselves.

When we have this implanted faith we will necessarily act in a certain way, be a certain type of person, but it will be God doing that, not us. Of course as Paul said if we don't change if we show nothing, if we do not want to lead a life pleasing to Christ, then we do not have the Holy Spirit, nor do we have faith.

Evil and sin is in the world, through no action of you or I.

What are our choices, do we chose to sin, or do we sin automatically as part of our nature.

Does it then become a choice NOT to sin? Or a choice TO sin?

Do we have choices?

The Spirit is also in the world, through no action of you or I.

What are our choices, do we automatically accept the Spirit, thereby NOT making it an act of "work".

Does it then become a choice NOT to accept the Spirit?

If that were the case then we would need to make an informed decision.

Finally, is it possible to accept Christ and your salvation, without really knowing who He is, or the significance of what He did?

I believe this all still relates to the original post.

[Smalcald]

You are Christian because the Holy Spirit is in your body creating faith through the Gospel. Everything you mentioned flows from that. You trust and receive Christ because Christ forced Himself upon you, not because of any decision you made, it is not about our decision, and we must get that out of our head because a decision is a work.

It is a works based philosophy to say that faith has anything to do with reception, or choice, or logic, or ANYTHING that we can do ourselves.

When we have this implanted faith we will necessarily act in a certain way, be a certain type of person, but it will be God doing that, not us. Of course as Paul said if we don't change if we show nothing, if we do not want to lead a life pleasing to Christ, then we do not have the Holy Spirit, nor do we have faith.

Evil and sin is in the world, through no action of you or I.

What are our choices, do we chose to sin, or do we sin automatically as part of our nature.

Does it then become a choice NOT to sin? Or a choice TO sin?

Do we have choices?

The Spirit is also in the world, through no action of you or I.

What are our choices, do we automatically accept the Spirit, thereby NOT making it an act of "work".

Does it then become a choice NOT to accept the Spirit?

If that were the case then we would need to make an informed decision.

Finally, is it possible to accept Christ and your salvation, without really knowing who He is, or the significance of what He did?

I believe this all still relates to the original post.

Hi mike good questions. I will give you my take on them and I think my congregations take, but I will add that we are entering territory that is hazy and part of the mystery of God, part of things which we cannot control nor may never really understand.

1. Yes we have choices. But one of those choices was not to call the Holy Spirit or the Gospel to us, it was not to decide that I will choose God, God came to us and saved us from being dead. But now that we are saved we are in a lifelong struggle with our flesh, as we have a new mind, not our old carnal mind, thus we have this struggle our entire life as someone who is saved. People who are not saved nor have true faith don't really struggle with sin, they have a carnal mind and cannot please God, ever even by doing good works.

2, We have the ability to run away from God, to reject the Gospel. I don't know if that is a choice though, not a complete choice. God chose us, we did not choose God, but we have the ability to walk away. But even here, maybe that was pre-destined anyway, was that then a true choice? I don't know.

3. On your third question, we are back to semantics again I think. We don't accept Christ nor our salvation, Christ gives us a free gift of salvation it is already ours, the work was done 2000 years ago, indeed it is very possible that Christ grants this salvation to people who don't fully understand it, He has that power. Once again we only have the power to reject the message, our following the message is from God alone. So if we do believe, than it is not us who decided to believe, we only believe because of God implanting that faith. There is nothing good inside of us, nothing at all we are totally dead in trespasses and sin and filth, so if we come to faith it is an act of the Holy Spirit, and if we don't come to faith it is our action and choice because of our own evil. We only have the ability to chose for the bad, as on our own we are evil and dead due to our sin.

The reason we are so adamant about this language is that the idea that I somehow had something to do with my salvation is very dangerous to our soul. It takes away from the glory of Christ, who did everything, if I had anything to do with accepting Christ it means that somehow I deserved salvation because of something I did or am or my nature. But that means I may not put my total faith in Christ alone, I may lean on myself or think that I am better than others who do not have faith. When we know from scripture that all human beings are equally condemned in the eyes of God, equally evil and doomed to eternal death.

[IslandRose]

Do you think when witnessing we need to get straight to the salvation part, or do you think we should take a little more time talking about the Christian life first?

Only one answer for me. We should witness as we are led by the Holy Spirit. It may well be that we should at times witness both ways to different people.

Jude 1:22 And of some have compassion, making a difference: 23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

[cymba22]

Before we can lead a Christian life, we have to be saved. We accept Christ to save us...that is the entire purpose. Not just from hell, but to restore us to what He intended us to be. That is the purpose of salvation. I do'nt see why accepting Christ on those premises would be wrong.

Now you are correct that if we only believe for beliefs sake and show nothing of this belief in our daily lives, then yeah, it's a sorry excuse. I think that's the point you're trying to make?

Yes