In his fabulous little book, How Can I Change?, C. J. Mahaney asks a thought-provoking question about regeneration.
"Here's the situation: You are a youth specialist who counsels kids with a rare mental disorder--They are absolutely convinced they gave birth to themselves. What kind of anxieties would you expect this to produce in them? (Would you expect to see similar anxieties in Christians who don't understand God's role in regeneration?)
thoughts?
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7 comments:
Sort of reminds me of pulling your bottom lip up over your face and swallowing yourself.
Incredible! Your deviating from discussions about women serving men. I'd never thought I'd see the day...
It's very refreshing
I think they would be freaking out at the monsters "they've" created...
I suppose there is some kind of connection between this and evolution. If we have given birth to ourselves then...
-there is no God to answer to,
-there is no right or wrong,
-no one really matters but me,
-and I might as well get all I can out of life, no matter who or what stands in my way.
I thought I'd add a few pull-quotes to stir up the thinking process:
"Becoming a Christian is not making a new start in life; it is receiving a new life to start with."
Thomas Adams
Matthew 19:23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
"We rarely tak this teaching [that man cannot enter the kingdom of God] sufficiently seriously, perhaps because it cuts from under our feet the last vestiges of our natural self-sufficiency. It highlights the biblical teaching that our salvation is all of grace. The one thing necessary is the one thing we ourselves cannot perform!"
Sinclair Ferguson
"The new birth is not only a mystery that no man understands, it is a miracle that no man can undertake."
Richard Baxter
Titus 3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
"One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, 'How did you come to be a Christian?' I sought the Lord. 'But how did you come to seek the Lord?' The truth flashed across my mind in a moment--I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, 'How came I to pray?' I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. 'How came I to read the Scriptures?' I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith,, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, 'I ascribe my change wholly to God.'"
Charles H. Spurgeon
Very interesting in the light of what I have been finding in the Word Faith and many other Pentacostal movements. It is unbelievable the obvious lies that can creep undetected into our very own circles.
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