From Barn to Palace

I spoke at a barn rally this month up in Westmorland. I think a couple of hundred were present, and most of them existing followers of Jesus Christ. Yet at least one unbeliever was there, because he wished to speak to me afterwards. He knew his life was not right and that one day he would stand before God. I suggested he get right with God, right there and then. However, I cannot press a person into the Kingdom; only God can draw them. He was reluctant to pray with me, so I urged him to do so that night, in his own room. Did he do so? Are his sins now forgiven, himself born again? I cannot say. We Christians cannot convert, redeem and regenerate anymore than we can resurrect the body. These are things that only the Spirit of God can do. It is our job to tell; it is God’s role to use it.

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8, NKJV