Dead people feel no need
- Jacob Ninan
When a baby is born, everyone waits for him to cry. The baby's first cry indicates his need for air to breathe. Afterwards the baby cries whenever he feels hunger, thirst or pain. Everyone knows that if a baby does not cry for these things there is something seriously wrong with the baby's physical health.
It is the same way when a person is born again. What happens when a person is born again is that his spirit becomes alive and he gets a living connection with God. Then he begins to cry for God. A desire to know God better, to walk closely with Him, to become more pleasing to Him, to become like Him in thinking, attitude and behaviour, to love others, to stop sinning in so many ways, etc., becomes stronger and stronger. He begins to read God's word, pray more, talk about God more, ask more questions about the godly life, etc. Something has happened. He was dead in sin (Eph.2:1;Ps.51:5), and now he has become alive to God (Ro.6:11). He has changed inside, and he wants the change to happen outside also. A battle develops between the new man that has been born and the sinful nature that is still in him. The psalmist describes this seeking after God as a deer panting for water (Ps.42:1).
Is this the picture you see when you look around at the large numbers of Christians around you? Is this your picture? The picture that is most commonly seen is that there is some external compliance with Christian norms, but the heart only longs (cries) for earthly pleasures. What seems to interest a large number of so-called Christians is really no different from what non-Christians desire -- the wealth, fame and pleasures of this earth. What it shows is that these Christians are in fact no different inside them from their non-Christian friends, if we put aside the external differences of rituals, practices and beliefs! If such spiritual cries as mentioned above are not coming up, what does it indicate except that the baby is not spiritually alive? He is not born again, even though he assumes that he is, and other people also think that because of his regularity in the church. What a depth of self-deception! People are dead in sin even now, but they imagine that they are on their way to heaven!
This is the single root cause of the myriads of problems we see among Christians and churches. The reason for the rottenness of the root is that the Devil has managed to change the preaching of the Gospel by taking away even the mention of the problem of sin, Christ's answer for it and our repentance. Now it is all about getting blessings from God for our earthly life! As a result people are not saved at all, they have no knowledge of God (1Co.15:34), but they still imagine that everything is fine. Such ones even become preachers to tell others this 'good news' -- now you can enjoy this life! But that is a false gospel!
The time is really short. Every one of us needs to make sure about where we stand with God. Are we alive or dead?