I just finished reading the book, Plan B, by Pete Wilson (I highly recommend it for any believer who is currently feeling like they have unmet expectations or unfulfilled dreams) and I could share a lot of the insight from that book on here…but there was a passage of Scripture that he quoted near the end of the book that got my mind thinking on an entirely different track.  He quoted John 11, which is the chapter that records the account of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus from the dead.  There were many things that jumped off of the page to me from this particular passage, but I will try to avoid addressing them all and just focus on the main thing that hit me.  The biggest line that I was struck by was actually AFTER Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  The story is basically as follows Lazarus was sick and dying and his sisters came seeking the help of Jesus and telling Him of the severity of Lazarus illness.  Jesus intentionally waits to go back until after Lazarus is dead in order to reveal the power and glory of God.  When Jesus arrives in Judea, Lazarus has already been dead for 4 days at this point and has been essentially buried in the traditional way…wrapped in burial cloths and placed in a tomb.  Jesus has the tombstone removed from where it is and calls out to him, “Lazarus, come out!”  To which, Lazarus responds by walking out of the tomb, (the text literally says, “The dead man came out.”)  Jesus told the people to take the burial cloths off of his body and let him go…which the people presumably did.  Then, after the resurrection, the text says something that I’ve sort of brushed over in the past…it says, “Many of the people, who had come to visit Mary and saw what Jesus did, believed in Him.”  MANY of the people…

Alright, now, I can’t imagine what I would do if I were at a funeral for somebody…anybody really…and this was the fourth day after they were pronounced dead, I had been at the visitation and the burial and everything…there is no doubt to anybody witnessing this act, that Lazarus was in fact dead.  I don’t know what I would do, but I can say that witnessing that would remove any doubt in my mind that the man who was able to bring the dead person to life, has the power of giving life to people…so when I read the word “many,” it causes me to question why?   I understand why the many believed, but I’m confused by the ones who did not believe.  I would think that in a situation like that, everybody who witnessed that would come to believe…but truthfully, I don’t think that would be the case.  Even the people who saw miracles like this didn’t all come to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God!!  The only conclusion that I can draw from that is that the people who did not accept this were under some delusion at that point…and they were.  In fact, all people are…it’s called the impact of sin on our lives.  Nobody can accept the things of God unless His Spirit has regenerated us because we are dead in our sins.  We will justify, rationalize, deny, and do whatever else we have to in order to reject the truth because, as the Bible says in Romans 1…”[we] suppress the truth by our wickedness.”  This is the natural, unnatural state in which we live prior to the Holy Spirit bringing us life.  It is natural because we are all doing what we do by our sinful nature, but it is unnatural because that “natural” behavior is a result of the fall and not the state in which we were created to live our lives.  We are unable to accept the things of God unless His Spirit has brought us to life, and this is why I titled this post, “The Requirement of Regeneration.”  In order to be able to accept the truth about God, He has to give us new life…his Spirit has to regenerate us to life because we are, as Paul so aptly puts it in Ephesians, “…dead in our transgressions.”  That which is dead needs to be brought to life before it can truly be alive.  And true life is found in Christ Jesus…as He states, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

This is one thing that has drastically changed the way I evangelize.  I used to study up on all of the logical “proofs” (which are not truly proofs, but arguments) for the existence of God…I could spout out the teleological, ontological, cosmological arguments and go over Thomas Aquinas “Five Ways” until I was blue in the face.  I researched for years the flaws in evolutionary theories and inconsistencies within, and had very strong evidences for belief in the Christian faith.  I would intentionally engage students in my college philosophy and sociology courses in conversations about religious belief in general simply in order to try to convince them of how rational and logical the belief in Christianity is…and as I’ve learned more and more…that is not the most effective way to minister to most people.  There were a few people whom I believe God used those conversations to plant some seeds, but for most of them, I believe they were unmoved.  And the reason is summed up in 1 Corinthians 1.  When I read that it makes total sense to me that pursuing all of these logical proofs for the existence of a higher power does nothing.  Even if I were to convince somebody who was an agnostic that there was a higher power, that doesn’t do anything for their salvation!!  Many people believe in a god, but the Bible says, “Even the demons believe in God…and shudder.”  And even if I was able to convince somebody of  a higher power, that doesn’t mean that they will come to recognize that it is YAHWEH…Father of Jesus the Christ!!  So what good does all of that arguing do?  And this is what I discovered, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to the ones being saved it’s the power of God.”  Wow…so unless a person is being saved, the cross is foolishness.  I realized that, although I do believe Christianity makes the most sense to me because it falls in line with the true reality (which is God’s reality)…it is going to be utterly foolish to people who are not being saved.  So although I believe it is important to know what we believe and why we believe it, and we are called to always be ready to give an account for what we believe…I don’t think that it is especially beneficial to try to convince somebody of the validity of the Christian faith through fine sounding arguments.

I think the most effective way to reach people is by striving to live out a life of authentic love.  If we can love and serve others while expecting nothing in return, that puts some stock in what we claim.  That is us living out the truth of the Scripture, and as people encounter the love of God, that’s when His Spirit can begin to do His work.  No amount of fine sounding arguments or even witnessing the miraculous will have an effect on a person unless the Spirit of God has regenerated them and opened that person’s eyes to the truth.  This is why I don’t try to convince people anymore…I know that God’s truth is the truth, but I also recognize that His truth is foolishness to people who have not been given life through the Holy Spirit.  And THIS is why the text says, “most” of those people believe instead of “all” of those people believed.  Because, even though they had all seen it, some of them were unable to believe because they did not have hearts open to accept the truth…after all, once a person comes to the realization of the truth…they have to accept that they are not in control, and that’s a large dose of humility that has to be taken.  And I believe that the only way it can be accepted (and I believe this is backed biblically) is if The Holy Spirit of God regenerates us prior to that experience.  This is also why I believe people are necessarily regenerated prior to conversion (it might be  nearly simultaneous and an indistinguishable time difference, but regeneration does have to precede conversion).  Alright, so that is not at all what Plan B was about, but that was something that I wanted to work through briefly.

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