Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

• John 3:1-8

“The natural man does not want to be born again. If a man’s morality is well within his own grasp and he has enough religion to give the right tone to his natural life, to talk about being born again seems utterly needless. The natural man is not in distress, he is not conscious of conviction of sin, or of any disharmony, he is quite contented and at peace. Conviction of sin is the realization that my natural life is based on a disposition that will not have Jesus Christ. The Gospel does not present what the natural man wants but what he needs, and the Gospel awakens an intense resentment as well as an intense craving. We will take God’s blessings and loving-kindnesses and prosperities, but when it comes to the need of having our disposition altered, there is opposition at once.
“No man can have his state of mind altered without suffering for it in his body, and that is why men do anything to avoid conviction of sin. When a worldly man who is happy, moral and upright, comes in contact with Jesus Christ, his ‘beauty’, i.e. the perfectly ordered completeness of his nature, is destroyed and that man must be persuaded that Jesus Christ has a better kind of life for him otherwise he feels he had better not have come across Him. … Thank God, we are coming to the end of the shallow presentation of Christianity that makes out that Jesus Christ came only to give us peace. Thousands of people are happy without God in this world, but that kind of happiness and peace is on a wrong level. Jesus Christ came to send a sword through every peace that is not based on a personal relationship to Himself. He came to put us right with God that His own peace might reign.”

• Oswald Chambers, Daily Thoughts for Disciples (July 28, from The Servant as His Lord)

In many of my testimonies, I portray myself as the proverbial “good kid.”  If you knew my mother, really know her, as in behind closed doors where family only got to know, you would know that the “good kid” came from a feeling of not just fear, but terror.  Being a “good kid” was a means of self-preservation.

And Oswald Chambers so well describes how I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I was a good little boy.  Why would I ever need to be born again?  Accepting Jesus meant accepting His program, and my program was working.

Oddly, accepting Jesus and then telling my mother that I had done so, made this church choir director, organist and Sunday school teacher vow that she would beat Jesus out of me.  She was afraid I would go to California and become a Hippie for Jesus, but her continual torment increased.  In a short time, I learned about suffering for righteousness’ sake, from someone who professed to be a Christian.

But the conviction of my sin, a ton of self-righteousness among those sins, was so overpowering, that the physical and emotional abuse that followed was nothing in comparison to the spiritual battle.  Jesus wanted me, and the Holy Spirit did the best that He could to lead me to the point that in my tormented mind, my only sane option was to lay down my arms and let Jesus enter my heart.  I did nothing to have that happen.  I simply quit fighting Him off.

Oswald Chambers idea that man will do anything to avoid conviction of sin.  That brought back such vivid memories that are now over fifty years old.

I heard a pastor once who told me in a private conversation that of all things, when evangelizing, avoid saying anything about rebirth or born again.  The secular world hates hearing that.  It is as if Christians are in this private club, a secret society that is open only to a few.

I stared at the pastor for a few seconds.  Then I said something like, “But are we not in a private club?  The society is not secret, but God only starts developing a strong relationship with us after we accept Him.  We have no entrance to God’s throne until we are washed of our sins.  Thus, the mystery of the secret society is revealed bits at a time as the Holy Spirit sees that we are ready to truly understand.  And as for the few, Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself once, and that is sufficient for all who seek God and truly call Him Lord and Savior.  Yet, few really surrender themselves to God.  And Jesus said it Himself that we must be born again.  How can you avoid those words and truly present the Gospel to someone who does not believe?”

The pastor smiled, winked, and said, “Exactly!”

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.