"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Beloved, As we have investigated the different aspects of what it means to be a Christian, we have said time and time again that when God moves on someone in saving them from their sinful, depraved way of life, the transaction (or maybe better said, the transformation) completely changes that person. What happens in the heart, mind and then the body of someone who has been overtaken by the Holy Spirit is that they are no longer who they used to be but they are in fact someone brand new. By this I don’t mean that their physical appearance changes to the point that you would not recognize them; that is they don’t go from being tall to being short or from skinny to being overweight. No, the change is in their nature, their essence; in who they are at the very center of their being. They are changed from the inside out. I am afraid that this facet of the Christian life has been largely overlooked or worse yet, ignored. In the practices of the church during the last 100 years or so, there has been an unhealthy emphasis on a person’s profession with little regard for a renewed lifestyle to back up what is being said. It seems that in most churches, once a person has walked down the aisle, signed a membership card, made a “profession” and then been baptized, then the process of salvation has been completed with nothing else required. While these things are good, they are not salvation. Only God can bring about the salvation of a soul and when He does there is such a change in that person that the ritual of aisle walking and card signing pales in comparison to the life lived daily bearing fruit that is commensurate with the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit. The danger that the corporate body of Christ faces today is not a failure on the part of Christians to live with passion and a commitment for the Lord Jesus. The real problems are due to the “rituals of salvation” that have been so watered down from what scripture mandates, that membership roles have been gorged with unregenerate, unbelieving people who are masquerading as believers in Christ. And while it is true that these spiritual charlatans play the part well by saying all the right things and at times doing the things that on the surface seem to be “godly,” they have not experienced the change that only the Holy Spirit brings. They do not exhibit a lifestyle of bearing fruit in keeping with repentance because they have never really experienced repentance; they have only experience remorse for bad behavior and not the genuine life altering conviction of the Spirit of God. In short, they have not been changed from the inside out, they are not new creatures; they are still the same old thing dressed up in their Sunday best. It is my firm conviction from scripture that if churches today were filled with those who had been truly changed by the Holy Spirit, instead of being the minority, then as in the days of the book of Acts there would be absolutely nothing that could not be accomplished for the Kingdom of God.
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