Friday, December 19, 2008

The Stigma of a Lifelong Christian

You ever feel like your Christian faith is lacking something because you were baptized as an infant? I'm not addressing "the love going cold" that can happen to a person even if they haven't been Christian all their life.

Last night in Bible Class we took time to read through the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke. Both the births of John the Baptist and Jesus were miraculous. John's mother was barren and old. Jesus' mother was a virgin. John the Baptist also had the distinguishing mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit even from the womb. John did not have the opportunity to live a time in rebellion before God saved him. This, the Bible says, is something special.

We have not had the Holy Spirit from the time we were in our mother's womb (Psalm 51:5). We did receive the Holy Spirit through water and word (John 3:5). Dead is dead, whether we were dead for 9 months and 8 days, or dead for years. Our Christian faith is not composed of various ingredients one of which is how far we had fallen, but it is completely an act of God through His Word.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Rev,

"My ways are higher than your ways, My thought are higher than your thoughts"

John is special, we agree about that, right?

Malkezedeck (sp?) was special too, right?

There are many things that may be "special" that we aren't aware of.

We mustn't hold The Almighty to our standards.

Thank you for your observation,
Greg

PS: my email address is gregorywales@gmail.com
Please reply there in addition to the local site.