It’s a blessing to be raised in a God-fearing home. It can also be dangerous.
Now hold on just a minute. Before you jump to conclusions, let me explain.
When one is raised in Sunday School and church, the Bible can be like air. It's all around you.
Heroes of the faith--Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter and Paul--are like friends of the family. They’re very familiar to you. Stories about Jesus are embedded in your memory.
So where's the danger? It’s in the familiarity. Because familiarity breeds contempt.
Jesus warned us about having a calloused heart—being spiritually blind and deaf. His exact words were, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand…. This people’s heart has become calloused.”
The danger is that we can get to the place where we no longer see God at work, hear his voice or understand what he is doing. We can even attend church regularly and enjoy the rituals. But when God’s Word is read, it’s no more than familiar words.
How can we tell if we have a calloused heart? One sign is that we’re more interested in the rituals of religion than in a personal relationship with God.
If we’re not careful we begin to view religion as a contract. In other words, “I do my part and God does his. I go to church, believe in God, pray and even tithe. Then God will bless me and keep me and my family healthy and happy.”
But the Bible says that God wants us to be more than dutiful worshippers. He wants us to be his children. And that involves a relationship of trust, accountability, obedience and love.
Maybe you’d say, “I was raised in church but it’s dead ritual to me. I don’t enjoy it at all.”
Why is that? The Bible explains one possible reason. It says, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
The only solution is what the Bible calls the “new birth.” To be “born again.”
To be born again is not reincarnation or a physical rebirth of some kind. Jesus made it clear that it involved a spiritual birth. It’s more than agreeing to a creed or changing your mind.
The new birth, according to the Bible, is an act of God bringing new life, eternal life--his life--into our soul. It happens when we stop trusting in our own good works to earn salvation and begin trusting in Jesus Christ. It is his life, his death and his resurrection that saves us from sin.
God promised he would do this through the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel when he said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” And it is personal faith in Christ—believing in HIM--that brings this new life.
The Bible puts it like this: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
Just as we receive human life from our parents, we receive eternal life from God. That life comes through the presence of God’s Holy Spirit whom the Bible says indwells all who put their faith and trust in Christ.
The good news is that, regardless of whether we were raised in a religious or non-religious home, everyone can receive new life and a new heart through faith in Jesus Christ.
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