A Gift not Works

[Name], just a few more comments on your emails to me. It seems to me that you think what I am writing about is a choice between material satisfaction and spiritual satisfaction or certain activities you might engage in. It really is not about what you do but what you allow God to do. At the fork in the road at the point when you really realize and understand, then some amazing things happen and they all happen at the same instant. God the Father causes you to be “born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3), Jesus Christ gives you eternal life (John 17:2), and “the Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). When this happens one becomes a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17) who is spiritually alive causing old things to pass away and new things to come. This new creature has the mind of Christ to think with and the resources of God to draw upon from within. God becomes your source of strength, understanding, and wisdom that empowers your life. 

[Name], I am talking about life that is connected to God through his Spirit who provides for you needs. This is not about choosing to think or act in a certain way. This is about overcoming darkness and death through Jesus Christ and allowing him to replace it with light and life. I am suggesting that you sincerely ask God to give you an understanding in this.

Evaluation

The following email I received from my friend, after sending him the lesson on “True Believers”, will mean much more to those who have been following my blog entries on this. My friend wrote:

As you know that I have committed myself too much in the past years, it is very hard for me to choose and suddenly stay away from my normal life, in the pursuit of spiritual satisfaction.  

I have tried to ask the Lord to reveal what I learnt from you these days is real and true, but I have not got it yet.

But what I need to do next?

I have been wondering what need to do, what I need to change now, as I have been trying to look after a company, to look after the people, leading them and training them, showing them the right way to a better life.

I am a little puzzled with myself. What is my spiritual life like, as we talked about the spiritual life frequently?

I may need to leave my real life job and routine a while every year, to stay with some kind of religious people or mentors to lead me to the right direction, to choose the narrow gate as discussed. I am confusing myself now!

The approach I am taking with my friend is definitely not the approach I would have taken eleven years ago when I first went to China. Then I would have pressured him into a decision to accept Christ. I did this with two other Chinese and after several weeks they both prayed to receive Christ, but as I spent time with them I didn't see any change in their lives. Several years later my path crossed with one of them and as we had lunch together we talked about that supposed day of conversion. I was informed that they both prayed to remove any further pressure from me.

Sometime later a westerner visited my Chinese Bible study and tried to lead one of my unsaved Chinese students to Christ and in the process completely drove that student away from Christianity. From my own experience and this one I realized that we in the west are trained to get a decision not to understand that conversion occurs when God the Father is ready and causes one to be born again (1 Peter 1:3), not when we get one to pray. This understanding has caused me, especially in a foreign pagan culture, to simply talk about who Jesus is and lay the ground work for spiritual life. My students in coffee shop conversations have thanked me for doing this because it gave them an opportunity to ask questions and have conversation without fearing pressure from me. This is what I am doing with my friend. I am trying to show him the uniqueness of Jesus and at the same time determine if God is at work forming any spiritual insight in him.

How do you evaluate my friend spiritual understanding and awareness based on his email? I am working on a response for tomorrow, but I need more time for prayer.