born again | Stray Thoughts

Adoniram Judson, one of America’s first missionaries in the early 1800s, has one of the most dramatic testimonies I ever heard. He came from a Christian home, but in college fell in with a group who didn’t believe as he had been taught. His best friend was Jacob Eames, a “free-thinker” who was a skeptic. Though Jacob believed there was some type of God, he rejected the Bible.

Adoniram’s departure from the faith broke his parents’ hearts. His father tried to talk with him, but could not match Adoniram’s brilliant reasoning.

Adoniram wanted to go into the theater and perhaps become a playwright. But when the theater group he found had appalling morals.

He traveled more, ending up one night at an inn that had only one room left. The innkeeper apologized, saying the man in the next room was dying. Adoniram assured the man he would not be bothered. But he could hear the man’s groaning all through the night. Adoniram was shaken with thoughts of what happens after death.

As Adoniram sought the innkeeper the next morning to settle his account, he asked about the dying man. The innkeeper confirmed that the man did die. As they discussed the situation further, it came out that the dead man was Adoniram’s friend, Jacob Eames.

Adoniram was stunned–not only because Eames was so young and his friend, but because he wondered for the first time if he might be wrong. He felt that only God could have orchestrated events that led him to this time and place.

He wasn’t saved immediately, but this was the first step in his coming to true faith in God.

I’ve heard other thrilling conversion stories through the years: twin brothers in a former church and half-brothers in our current church who were miraculously saved from drug addiction, a man caught in a piece of machinery who would have died without God’s intervention, the apostle Paul’s Damascus Road experience.

Such exciting accounts can make some of us feel our testimonies are a little lacking.

But consider what salvation is: a new birth. We’ve known people with exciting birth stories as well: One friend made it to the hospital, but not past the lobby when her baby came. My brother was born at home, too quickly to go anywhere, even though the doctor had told my mother that day that the baby wouldn’t come for a few days yet. Another friend planned to deliver at a small university hospital, but complications led to being transported by ambulance to a larger hospital in town.

Yet every birth is a miracle to those involved. Parents greet their newborns with love and joy no matter what details led to the baby’s arrival.

Jesus told about a man leaving ninety-nine sheep behind to find the one lost one and rejoicing when he found it. He went on to say, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). He told of a woman finding a lost coin and then calling her friends in to rejoice with her when she found it. Then He reiterated, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The little child who comes to saving faith at home, in Sunday School, or in VBS causes just as much joy in heaven as the hardest criminal who believes.

We tend to think of drug dealers, prostitutes, gangsters, and such as the “worst” sinners. Proverbs 6:16-19 says, “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.” Pride, lying, and discord are right up there with shedding innocent blood.

When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, He replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). If that’s the greatest commandment, it follows that the greatest sin is breaking that commandment. And all of us do so every day.

Salvation is turning from darkness to light, becoming God’s child, receiving forgiveness and eternal life, and beginning a personal relationship with God. That’s pretty dramatic in itself, no matter the circumstances that led to it.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Here are some thought-provoking reads discovered this week.

Regeneration, HT to Challies. “We’ve dropped being born again from our vocabulary as evangelicals as it smacks of being American from the 1950s and yet the doctrine of regeneration couldn’t be more vital. If you’ve not been born again/regenerated you cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3,5 which fulfils Ezekiel 36:25,26). If you don’t understand regeneration you will misunderstand the whole of the gospel.”

The Race. I could identify with this both as a mother watching a child race and as someone who will never cross any finish line first. “I have a feeling that it isn’t only the Olympic gold medalists who bring God pleasure when they run, limp, or crawl across a real finish line.”

Rescued, Resilient, and Resisting—Even in a Pandemic. I love this post from Michele about riding out the end of the pandemic with a “Resolve to finish well. Foiling Satan’s attack on our human tendency to ‘yield just when … relief was almost in sight,’ let us rather lean in to the struggle against impatience or petulance.”

On the Question Every Heart Asks: Why? HT to The Story Warren. “It is comforting to know that even Solomon in his wisdom, also asked why.”

The Counsel and Care of the Elderly, HT to Challies. “Society feeds the pride of young men and women by telling them that they can change the world–regardless of God-given giftings, intellect, upbringing, associations, providential encounters, guidance, or hard work. Society tells us that the elderly are a burden to progress. While there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), ours is an increasingly narcissistic culture. This is nowhere more evident than in our disdain and disregard of the elderly.”

The Risky Upside of Missionary Biographies. And some advantages. I shared some others a few years ago in Why Read Biographies?

When Amazon Erased My Book, HT to Challies. Scary.

There were a number of posts on emotions this week:

Dealing with Anger. “Most of us will agree that when we get angry we lose much more than our temper. We say or do terrible things that we regret later, and we wish we could take them back.”

Engaging Our Emotions, Engaging with God, HT to Challies. “God doesn’t call us to avoid or squash our emotions (as Christians often suppose). Neither does he call us to embrace them unconditionally (as our culture often urges). Rather, he calls us to engage them by bringing our emotions to him and to his people.”

Lament Is for Little Ones, Too, HT to The Story Warren. “These psalms typically follow a threefold structure: tell God how you feel; ask for help; respond in trust and hope. We can use this pattern to help our children learn to lament to God all that they are feeling.”