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Do not encourage
the unsaved to share in the behavior only empowered by the Holy
Spirit. It is one thing to teach children how to pray and to train them in Sunday School, and it is quite another to try to get an adult who is not saved to develop a quiet time and a prayer life. Big, big mistake. I have heard preachers say that God does not hear the prayers of the unsaved, and I do not think that is true. I have known many who are now born again and could give testimonies of pre-new birth answered prayer. But those prayers have been from a distressed soul crying out to a God they knew or hoped could hear, and He answered in order to bring them to Himself. He will not establish a relationship with an individual without that person coming by the Blood. Period. No exceptions. A man may not come to Christ by being Christianized, and as a matter of fact, it will give him an extra measure of blindness and dullness. It is easier on the flesh to try to get him in the back door by teaching him to do all the things - sing loudly, memorize, know things, and try to pray each morning. But without the Holy Spirit, he has no power and can not maintain the merely human efforts. I see this problem all the time on college campuses where the Christian organizations fail to deal first with the person's spiritual condition. The students are lost and they need salvation. They don't need to burn candles and sing a billion songs- they need Jesus! There is no such thing as half lost, and there is no such thing as sight without the Holy spirit. We are compromising because of spinelessness, and more often than not, Christian preachers in moderately liberal churches slow down on the very thing that is so desperately needed in order to be liked and employed. Yes, Jesus spent time winning the ones around Him. He loved, and He ate, and He healed. But He never waited until the ones around Him felt ready, and He knew even the disciples could not follow Him or be effective after the ascension until they had Pentecost. Be sensitive and tender, but be bold. The Gospel is not a message of function and behavior - it is a message of the Cross, and the Good News that Jesus has come to save sinners, and it is a message that demands an action - that of accepting and acknowledging that we can not do it ourselves and that we need a Savior. |
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