The normal christian life take up your cross and follow Me. That seems pretty stark, but this really should be your starting point. The problem is that no one is teaching it these days.
Most pastors don’t even cover Peter’s response on Pentecost when the people asked the apostles, “Brethren, what should we do?” Peter’s reply seems to give us the entry point to the new life on the Kingdom. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Most churches have pulled this apart to the place where it rarely happens.
- First, repentance is almost never talked about. Even evangelists commonly focus on laying guilt over everyone, offering Jesus as the fix for guilt—forgiveness without repentance. This accomplishes very little.
- Second, baptism has been pulled back to a religious event which happens quite a bit later, and is often not part of the normal worship service of the church. It’s mainly used as the second step of salvation—the public confession.
- Third, the Holy Spirit is reduced to the basic necessity for anyone to be able to get saved. The Holy Spirit enables us to believe in Jesus.
These three problems make it obvious why very few people are born again by saying a sinner’s prayer. At Biblical Reality, we normally start by telling the person who wants to become a believer to ask the Holy Spirit to show them all their sin.
This works because the seeker of help is brought face to face with as much of their sin as they can tolerate. Our normal method is to tell the people from the podium for the whole audience, or in a personal conversation, “In a normal voice, ask the Holy Spirit to show you all your sin. When you can’t stand it any more, ask Jesus what he wants you to do. He’ll take it from there.”
This is for people who find themselves in a spiritual crisis. That was the starting point for most of us. Virtually everyone at Biblical Reality met the Lord in a personal spiritual crisis. For many of us, it happened at home as we came to the end of our rope. Jesus commonly initiated the process. But then most of us were really messed up. Often we desperately needed deliverance from a demonic attack.
The main work of Biblical Reality is prayer, writing, and the production of two blogs, a Substack, and quite few books—both fiction and non-fiction. We publish them ourselves. People we disciple are commonly believers shaped by crisis. So, we show them a radical two part procedure.
The normal christian life begins with rebirth
Our process is certainly not the only way to come to the Lord. But it is much closer to Jesus’ injunction. Take up your cross and follow me. The cross is for death. These are life-changing desperate needs expressed by the person who wants help. It results in a conversation with the Lord.
Here is a step by step process to get started on the normal christian life:
- Realizing your need: Trying to talk people into getting saved often causes a person to say the sinner’s prayer to get you off their back. We try to answer their questions.
- Realizing your sin: a person needs to be aware of their sin and how messed up and evil they are. Asking the Holy Spirit to show you all your sin works well. This is a private thing between the person and the Lord.
- Asking for forgiveness: this humility is required.
- Experiencing that forgiveness: this really helps, but a simple stand of faith that they were forgiven works also. The change in the person is usually obvious from this point.
- Realizing that they need help to stay in this position: Needing to know what to do, the Holy Spirit lets them know they need to realize that Jesus is Lord and King. They need to ask the Lord to come inside them to clean things out and make the relationship permanent. Jesus makes it real.
- Thanks, praise, & worship: This is the normal outcome. That gives Jesus permission to do what He came to do—baptize His people in the Holy Spirit and Fire.
- Receiving discipleship: This is where they are taught that they are no longer in charge. Taking up his or her cross is a spiritual decision to kill the old man so he or she can recognize their death in the flesh. Kings have life and death authority. We have each given up our rights to enable our new birth and relationship with the Messiah.
We voluntarily become his slave. That sets us free from sin. We are ready to freely follow the One who is worthy. We ask the Holy Spirit to show us what we need to change, and what He wants us to do. We have reached the starting point of the Normal Christian Life. Another spanking new baby has entered the Kingdom of God.
This is not a rigid legalistic method. Everyone meets the Lord differently because we are all unique. The Holy Spirit will modify the events to tailor each person’s individual experience to their gifts and personality.
Then we teach the baby how to read and study scripture. We explain the gifts for everyday living provided by the Holy Spirit in I Corinthians 12. We teach how to talk with the Lord to get guidance and help. We get the babe started on discovering what the Lord designed him or her to do. We teach the realities of spiritual warfare. Some time during this whole process, we get the baby to pray with us as we ask the Lord to provide a personal mentor in an ongoing relationship.
What a joy it is to bring a baby up through youth, adulthood, and into maturity.