On the negative side, a person is not a Christian simply because he or she is born into a Christian family, or baptized into a Christian church, or because he or she joins a church. This is an important point, because millions of people have been deceived with the idea that their baptism or christening as a child, or their membership in a church as an adult, automatically puts them in God’s good graces.
Such people often have next to no knowledge of the Christian faith, and nothing in their behavior to suggest that Christ is, in fact, important to them. Yet if you ask them if they are Christians, they will very confidently answer that they are. When I was converted I happened to tell one of my professors that I had become a Christian. His puzzled response was, “Well, what were you before?” He apparently took it for granted that everybody born in America is automatically Christian.
But it is not so. Christian conversion is a spiritual matter. A Christian is a person who has entered into a new relationship with God. Christians have been forgiven their sins, and they have been declared by God to be His children. Their hearts have been changed by His Spirit, and they have within them a love for God and a heartfelt desire to please Him. These things do not come by birth or baptism but only by spiritual rebirth. “Truly, truly, I say to you,” said Jesus, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
Another way people are deceived is by thinking that because they have raised their hand in an evangelistic meeting or gone forward to kneel at an altar, they can take their salvation for granted. The problem here is that there are many possible motives for responding to an evangelistic appeal other than a true Spirit-wrought change in the heart. Perhaps you raised your hand one day to “receive Christ.” You knew that was what your parents wanted you to do, and you didn’t want to disappoint them. Or maybe all your friends were going forward, and you didn’t want to be left out. Or maybe you were moved by the story of Christ’s death, or by some other story the speaker told, and your public response was simply a reaction to the emotional power of the message. Or again, maybe the speaker presented his appeal in such a way that you found yourself desiring some benefit that Christ can bring, and your response was an expression of your desire for that benefit rather than for Christ Himself.
Sad to say, the gospel is often presented in terms such as these: “Are you lonely? Christ can become your best friend. Are you fearful? Christ can take away your fears. Do you want power to overcome your bad habits? Christ can give you power. Now, don’t you want Christ?” A person may listen to that type of message and make a public response to it without, perhaps, ever understanding anything at all about his or her own sin, the meaning of Christ’s death, and the nature of true faith.
Your decision to go forward and “give your life to Christ” may have been based on a completely inadequate understanding of the commitment you were being asked to make, with the result that you have lived for years in a condition of disappointment, feeling that promises were made to you that have never been fulfilled. Perhaps the problem is that you are not yet a Christian.
One other way we deceive ourselves is by supposing that spiritual “experience” is what shows that we stand in God’s good graces. Mormons encourage potential converts to pray that God will show them the truth of Mormon doctrine by causing them to experience a “burning” sensation in their hearts. People involved in New Age religion are inclined to place great emphasis on their ability to make contact with beings in the invisible spirit realm. Some people build a religious faith not on God and Christ but on angels, and they suppose that the experiences they have apparently had of angelic visitations prove that they are at peace with God.
This, too, must be rejected as deceptive and inadequate. It is not that the non-Christian who claims to have had a spiritual experience is necessarily wrong in that belief. The problem, rather, is that apart from the testimony of the Bible, there is no way of being sure that the experience is from God. One popular author claims to be receiving her theology straight from a woman dead several hundred years. I don’t know whether she is in contact with a spiritual being, is deluding herself, or is deliberately lying. What I do know is that her theology is completely at odds with the Bible, and so even if she is indeed having some sort of genuine spiritual experience, it has not reconciled her to the true God.
You may think of yourself as a “spiritual” person, but beware: The only spirituality the Bible recognizes as genuine is one that is focused on Jesus Christ and guided by His teaching and that of His apostles. If you put your confidence in your supposed experiences, those experiences may wind up costing you your soul.