Born Again

I am still wrestling with WHEN I was saved... when I was born again.

In 1991 I decided that I didn't want to go to hell. So at the age of 13 I "accepted Christ" and was baptized. Shortly thereafter, my family moved and I didn't go back to church until January of 2005 when my marriage and life were falling apart (the church across the street called to me as a last resort). I assumed I was already saved (because I was already baptized), but I didn't have peace and still always asked for Jesus to come live in my heart every time the pastor led a prayer for salvation. I even answered an altar call a couple of times and got re-baptized with my husband. Eventually I had peace and considered myself saved/ born again! As I've mentioned before, I was very active in the church and Bible studies and groups, etc .... God used me...

BUT.

But I wasn't changed. I didn't have any fruit. I look back and I can't see true life change. I wasn't a "new creation". I probably said I was, but I wasn't. If anyone asked the question about whether I knew that I knew that I knew that I was saved and going to heaven- I would yell out "OF COURSE!"... and I believed it. I did.

I don't know now. I think what I knew was head knowledge- I wanted to believe it so I believed it on principle which was as deep as I knew to go with it....

But now...now things are different. Everyone tells me how different I am. I truly AM. I am being transformed before my own eyes.... indeed... I look into my eyes and I see Jesus... I am ministered to from within....from the Holy Spirit who lives in me and has given me new life. I am connected to something that I still can't explain... the spiritual realm... the mind of Christ.... something supernatural.

My question to myself (and to God) is "was the Holy Spirit laying dormant in me - quenched beyond movement by my own sense of self for all those years?" (whether it's 20 years or 6 years, I'll not know).... OR has it only been a little over a year since I've been reborn??

Only God knows... but I think He's revealing it to me.
I have a sense that I have truly only been saved since last year... that it took my brokenness and suffering to bring me to a place of dependence on God... it took my admission of sin and recognition that I could not do this life on my own for me to come to a place where I was able to call on the SAVIOR of the world to RESCUE me from my depraved state. The day and experience where the Holy Spirit flooded into me and I flooded out is etched in my heart and I know that I haven't been the same since... that I am now in the process of being sanctified (made Christ-like).

I am scared about that, because if that is true- if I wasn't saved and sealed from the day that I originally asked Jesus to live in my heart, then there are a LOT of people that AREN'T saved...that THINK they are....they are decieved and coddled into complacency....into thinking they are good people because they read the Bible and go to church and serve others and so they assume they are saved.

If it's true that we have to wait on God to bring us to the place of surrender... that it's not based on us just hearing the message and responding in the flesh, then unfortunately it means that there is NOTHING that WE can do. GOD HIMSELF has to bring us to that place of brokenness. We can't do it. Oh, but we can pray for it. We can ask for it. We can BEG for it. But HE has to bring us there and when we get there, we need to know to respond to the ONLY ONE who can save - JESUS!

... the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. - Matthew 7:14


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