The Person Re-born

Paul Tournier was a Swiss physician and author whose focus in his writings was the healing of man's soul.  He defined sin as not only specific acts, but a state of man which hinders the advent of God's kingdom on earth.  C.S. Lewis, also, writes about specific acts of man that gradually turn the man into the sin itself.  He gives the example of a woman who grumbles so much that eventually the inner person is lost and she "becomes the grumble."

So many people misunderstand what it means to be "born again."  Once our "natural man" has turned itself into something else, other than our "inner man," our spirit, there is almost no going back the way we came on that journey.  Our only hope is for that "natural man" to die and to start over -- to be "born again."  This is as true for religious people as for non-religious ones.

In Chapter 17 of The Person Reborn, Paul Tournier writes this:

The Bible gives us a powerful picture of men guided by God.  They are not men who make no mistakes, but men who seek to listen to God and obey Him.  After many mistakes and acts of disobedience, humbled by disappointments and trembling before God, Moses found intimate fellowship with him, so that he was able to receive the Ten Commandments directly from God.

 

If Abraham had not believed the order to sacrifice his son, would he have had the experience that was his at the moment when God stayed his arm from a sacrifice which so many other religions saw as the cruel will of the diety? ....

 

Christ himself is the incarnation of this life led in its smallest details by the Spirit.  He walks peacefully, seeing in the man met on the road or the woman at the well the very soul to whom God has sent him.  No rush, no concocted plan, no disorder; eveything takes place in its own time, as he himself so often says.  But this does not stop him from withdrawing with his disciples to seek God's guidance.  He returns full of assurance, to go up to Jerusalem to face death.

 

All of these men of the Bible accept God's precise orders---the place they must go to, the time they must go there.  But they do not look for these orders as for oracles.  What they seek is God.  Following the directions they receive, they find their lives directed toward fellowship with God.  They do not express their fellowship sentimentally, but manifest it through their faith in the concrete directions they are following. 

 

Is it not because they have lost the sense of being led by the Spirit that so many church people are overworked, exhausted, and worried?  Administrative regulations, projects and committees may be necessary, but they do not take the place of what is lost.  Is it not for the same reason that so many of our patients tell us that what they hear in church seems theoretical and unconnected with real life? 

 

Yesterday, I wrote that man is a solar-powered creature; his 'natural man' is animated by the breath of God within him.  When we lose contact with the breath of God in us, our natural man grows weak, dis-integrated, gradually losing power as a battery cell gradually runs down with repeated use and no re-charging.  Jesus often took his disciples off to a quiet spot where they could re-charge their batteries and re-energize their lives by connecting just with Him.

 

If we lose our connection with God, it eventually no longer matters how much "good work" we are doing; it will only exhaust us and frustrate others.  If we are not being led by the Spirit, our work is in vain.  The breath of God in us is soft and quiet; it cannot be detected over the noise of the world.  If we cannot find a spot in which to re-charge our batteries, we will eventually run ourselves and all of our resources down to the ground:  if salt loses its flavor, it is of no use but to be thrown out. 

 

Being born-again means to allow the Spirit of God access into our inner man, allowing His direction and breath to blow us where He will.  As long as God is the Source of our energy, we will never lose power, enthusiasm, and inner strength.  The very word "enthusiasm" means "God within" (en-theos), from the Greek.  Sometimes, we may have to surrender all that the natural man has built up in order for that to happen.  We are so used to directing our own lives that it is hard to surrender to God's direction for us.  But when we allow the 'natural man' to die and begin to allow the Spirit to be our controlling center, we will find a life we never dreamed or imagined, a life that will never die, but will continue to live forever.