Category: False Converts

Saying The Right Things Doesn’t Necessarily Prove Genuine Christianity

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

How should we determine the authenticity of another person’s Christianity? If he or she rattles off a statement of faith that measures up to basic Christian orthodoxy, should that confession of faith be enough to satisfy us? I recently saw such a confession, written by someone known for open rebellion against certain portions of Scripture as well as for repeatedly slandering a Christian pastor over teachings that are unpopular with progressive evangelicals.

I affirm Jesus as the God-man, born of a virgin, who made atonement for sin, performed supernatural miracles to authenticate His claims, was crucified, died, was buried and rose again.

Okay, each of these affirmations is entirely Biblical. Every true Christian would agree wholeheartedly with each point. I’d venture to add that a denial of even one of these points would indicate that a person either doesn’t know Christ or is a very new convert. One cannot be a true Christian without believing all of these truths about Jesus.

At the same time, merely affirming these basic tenets of the faith doesn’t necessarily indicate genuine fidelity to the Lord. James, the half-brother of Jesus, stated in no uncertain terms that the ability to positively recite a Biblical affiliation of basic principles doesn’t always guarantee true Christianity.

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Does The Bible Say That We Should Evaluate Popular Teachings And Trends?

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

I recently shared a post on Facebook that a friend of mine wrote. He wrote about some current evangelical movements, commenting that such things capture the attention of people who prefer emotionalism and experiences to studying the Bible. He stated flat out that most people jump on these bandwagons because, whether they admit it or not, they don’t truly believe that Scripture is sufficient.

Predictably, several of my friends, rather than engaging with the matter of Scripture’s sufficiency, began defending the most prominent of the three examples he mentioned, accusing critics of that particular example of fearing an actual move of the Holy Spirit. Never mind that neither my friend nor I definitely condemned that specific movement. We questioned it, certainly, and said it should be evaluated against Scripture. And my friend did say that he believes people are more attracted to these things than they are to the hard work of Bible Study. But his Facebook post was not about that singular issue. Our critics completely overlooked the primary message in favor of defending a popular trend.

Additionally, the majority of our critics equated questioning popular trends with judging the hearts of people caught up in those trends. A few pointedly demanded to know where Scripture gives us the right to question anything that might be the work of the Holy Spirit.

That demand is fair. Maybe a bit ironic, given their resistance (and sometimes outright indignation) toward the idea of evaluating what they see as God’s activity — but fair. We should give Biblical reasons for holding popular trends up to the measuring rod of God’s Word.

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Making God As We Want Him

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

You’ve all heard it: “My God would never [fill in the blank]!”

When someone takes offense at a Biblical statement, that’s often the default response. The person doesn’t care what the Bible says about God’s nature; she simply wants God to fit into her preconceived notions of Who she thinks He should be. Sometimes she’ll even picture Him as a She. In essence, people who tell others about their God really believe in a god of their own making.

The God of the Bible, in contrast, has never tolerated such foolishness. As a matter of fact, He opens the Ten Commandments with a clear statement that we must worship Him instead of worshiping gods of our own imagination.

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. ~~Exodus 20:2-6 (NASB95)

Starting with verse 5, God explains His reasons for forbidding idolatry by revealing a few aspects of His character. The first aspect focuses on His jealousy, which few people would dream up if they invented an object of worship.

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Flashback Friday: Where Do We Find Assurance Of Salvation?

DebbieLynne Kespert2 Comments

Originally published July 20, 2017:

Broken Heart Cross

If you’re like me, you’ve probably experienced serious doubts about your salvation. Such doubts generally arise in response to falling back into familiar patterns of sin. As you see yourself committing the same ugly sin, even decades after your conversion, you have to ask yourself whether or not you were ever  really saved in the first place.

In one respect, you and I definitely should ask ourselves this question when we find ourselves committing the same sin habitually. Children of God at some point start to resemble the Father’s holiness (1 Peter 1:14-21, 1 John 3:4-10). Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians do persist in unrepentant sin, often rationalizing their rebellion and sometimes even believing that God approves of what they do. I know: I’ve done it.

Seeker-sensitive churches compound the problem by producing false converts who embrace an idealized concept of Jesus without submitting to the true Christ’s authority. These false converts see no need to repent and have no concern for personal holiness.

So yes, sometimes our sin should cause us to wonder if the Lord has truly done a work of regeneration in us. If we live without regard to His holy standards, some honest self-examination is most likely necessary.

But others of us, despite genuinely loving the Lord and wanting to obey Him, manage to get sucked back into sin on occasion. From our perspective, it seems like a habitual pattern because we repeat the same old sins time after time. We grieve every time we do it, fully aware that we’ve dishonored Him. Even if nobody else ever finds out what we’ve done, we know that we’ve violated His commands.

Like the apostle Paul in Romans 7:13-21, we hate our sin. We yearn to please the Lord, knowing that our sin put Him on the cross. How can we be so ungrateful? Why did we act like children of the devil, dragging our glorious Lord through the mud while we selfishly gratified our flesh?

As we fixate on the horrors of our sin, we accept Satan’s accusations that we’re nothing more than hypocrites. Because those accusations carry an element of truth, we believe his lie that we never really had salvation. We despair.

Sisters, we forget that assurance of salvation can never come from us. Paul wrote Romans 7 precisely to demonstrate that we don’t have any righteousness in and of ourselves. Looking at ourselves can never give us assurance!

Ah, but look at Paul’s  concluding paragraph in Romans 7:

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. ~~Romans 7:21-24 (ESV)

Paul doesn’t deny his wretched condition, but he ultimately clings to Jesus Christ as his deliverer. He remembers that Christ paid for all his sin (every ounce of it) by shedding His blood on the cross. Of course, Paul’s not excusing sin or implying that God’s grace gives Christians permission to indulge in sin. Rather, he’s encouraging us to rest in what the Lord has done for us.

Sin should trouble a Christian’s conscience. We should live lives of repentance, earnestly desiring to reflect our Heavenly Father’s holiness as we declare the Gospel to a dying world. But, when our sin breaks our hearts, let’s shift our gaze to Jesus, finding assurance in Him.

Understandable Assumptions Don’t Mean Correct Understanding

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

My friend pointed to the girl across the room, acting as if I’d never noticed the severity of the girl’s Cerebral Palsy. My friend balked at the announcement that the girl would be baptized that evening, but not because she suspected the girl hadn’t really placed her faith in Christ. On the contrary, my friend knew that baptism signifies repentance from sin, and consequently wondered why we wanted to baptize her. She whispered critically, “Why does someone like her need to be baptized? How could someone that disabled possibly sin?”

I sort of understood my friend’s perspective. Like me, the girl was a quadriplegic, but she didn’t have the ability to type with a mouthstick or headstick. Like me, she had an extreme speech impediment, but I was really the only one who could decipher her grunts and facial expressions well enough to translate for her (thankfully my speech was clear enough for me to do so). Outwardly, the girl appeared to have few desires beyond skipping her peanut butter sandwiches in favor of dessert. How could someone that disabled possibly be considered a sinner?

I knew better. Having grown up with her at the school for disabled children, I knew quite well of her strong will and intense desire to have the social advantages that I enjoyed. Sadly, her learning disability prevented her from being mainstreamed part-time into regular school, and her unintelligible speech kept her from meaningful friendships — even with other disabled kids. Yet she definitely knew what she wanted, and she had no problem expressing her frustration in violent outbursts.

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The Fourth Spiritual Law Has The Wrong Emphasis

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment
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If you’ve missed my earlier articles examining The Four Spiritual Laws, you can find them here, here and here. Although I don’t consider this tract to be false doctrine, and I gratefully acknowledge that God has used it in evangelism for at least half a century, I believe it gives an inadequate explanation of the Gospel. Therefore I’ve been taking you through all four laws, encouraging you to evaluate them Biblically.

Today we look at the final Law. It reads: “We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know God personally and experience His love.” Okay, that’s probably a good starting place. The wording is technically correct. I’d even say that the writers used John 1:12 and Ephesians 2:8-9 appropriately. And I’m pleased that they recommend reading John 3:1-8.

If they had then moved into a discussion of responding to the Lord with faith and repentance (Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9), things would have been hunky-dorey. But the writers chose to quote Revelation 3:20 — a verse written to Christians who had lost their zeal for the Lord.

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Don’t Fear Looking At Your Sin

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

We live in a culture that tells us to love ourselves. Self-esteem is, according to almost everybody, an essential virtue — one that we must teach our children as soon as we possibly can. Even in evangelical circles, people frown upon those who speak too often about our wretchedness.

But can’t self-esteem frequently keep Christians from examining themselves periodically to see if we are truly in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5)? Can it cause us to think of ourselves more highly than we should (Romans 12:3)?

You and I definitely should ask ourselves these questions when we find ourselves committing the same sin habitually. Children of God at some point start to resemble the Father’s holiness (1 Peter 1:14-21, 1 John 3:4-10). Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians do persist in unrepentant sin, often rationalizing their rebellion and sometimes even believing that God approves of what they do. When we don’t see evidence of genuine repentance in our lives — or at least grief over our sin — we need to ask ourselves if we have really been born again.

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Throwback Thursday: Rightly Dividing And Wrong Division

DebbieLynne Kespert1 Comment

Originally posted January 9, 2016:

Those of us who believe in adherence to sound Biblical doctrine frequently endure accusations of divisiveness. The majority of present day evangelicals believe that unity among Christians requires an abandonment of doctrine to the degree that salvation and discipleship revolve around a “Jesus” who conforms to individual preferences.

Empty PewThose of us who stand up for doctrinal purity quickly learn that doing so invites censure. We learn that we must keep our convictions to ourselves, lest we cause “division.” We dare not question women leading worship, church growth strategies, contemporary music that lacks theological content, contemplative prayer or replacing Bible Studies with small groups that focus on subjective impressions of how Scripture speaks to each member of the group. Standing for truth, in an increasing number of evangelical churches, means that we cause division.

Yet Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament epistles, saw division very differently than 21st Century evangelicals see it. Consider this quote:

Paul regards divisiveness as those who depart from sound doctrine. Doctrine is not the cause of disunity, departure is. ~Carl Trueman

Responsible reading (not to mention study) of Paul’s epistles bear out Trueman’s point. The apostle wrote several of his epistles (most of them, actually) with the purpose of clearing up doctrinal error and preserving correct teaching. As a matter of fact, right doctrine meant so much to Paul that he refused to tolerate those who would corrupt it with human philosophies. He furthermore warned church members to reject anyone who deliberately and persistently deviated from the truth.

17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. 18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. ~~Romans 16:17-18 (ESV)

Notice that the divisions Paul condemns thwart the doctrine that he and the other apostles taught. He never targeted Christians who stood for God’s Word in opposition to attempts to dilute or distort it to suit their own agendas. As he saw it, the Body of Christ could only experience true unity by teaching and obeying the doctrines given by the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. Those who watered down those doctrines caused disruption in the church.

And today, the very people who plead for “unity” seek to erode theological truths around which Bible-believing Christians should unite. Instead of  blindly accepting repetitious “praise” songs that focus on human feelings rather than the Lord’s character and work, for example, we should courageously point out how these songs deviate from Scripture. Similarly, instead of embracing pragmatic church growth strategies, we should encourage our pastors to preach expository, verse-by-verse sermons so that the Word will produce faith that results in genuine conversions.

Those of us who insist on doctrinal purity do so because we love the Lord. We want to see His church united around  His Word, forsaking subjective interpretations of it in favor of understanding it properly and obeying it faithfully. We grieve when people deviate from the clear teaching of Scripture to follow evangelical fads, agreeing with Carl Truman that true division comes though such people.

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Throwback Thursday: He Could Have Turned Away

DebbieLynne KespertLeave a comment

Originally posted on February 6, 2016, and appropriate for Valentine’s Day.

Broken HeartEach morning, he’d be there promptly at 7:30 to feed his wife. I never really saw her, though I lived at that nursing home for two years, but I knew she was in a “vegetative” state. If she knew he was there, she had no way of showing recognition, so it obviously follows that she couldn’t express appreciation, let alone affection or companionship. He’d feed her, change her Depends, and leave carrying a bag with her soiled diaper. Then he’d return each evening, shortly after 5:00, to feed her supper. Again, he’d leave with a bag.

He was good-looking, probably in his mid-sixties. He could have had an active social life….if he’d chosen to divorce his wife. Instead he’d come to the nursing home seven days a week, always cheerfully, and sometimes with goodies for Read More »

False Converts: Evaluating Myself And Others

DebbieLynne Kespert1 Comment

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In general, we probably would do well to avoid trying to determine whether or not someone is a false convert. I feel a temptation lately to analyze one of my friends who exhibits signs that she may not genuinely know the Lord.

For that matter, I sometimes try to figure out if I was really saved as a teenager or if my true conversion occurred in the last 15 years. There’s ample evidence to support both positions.

Over the years I believed a lot of bad doctrine, but over those same years I believed a lot of solid doctrine as well. Over the years I justified some of my sinful behaviors, but over those same years I grieved over other patterns of sin in myself and desired to please the Lord. I have concluded that I can’t evaluate my past spiritual status. I can only say that Read More »