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Chapter 7—The Test of Discipleship
“Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone,
the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
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A person may not be able to tell the exact time or place when he
gave his heart to God. He may not see the steps that brought him to
Christ. But this does not prove that he is not a child of God. Christ
said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear
the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or
where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the
Spirit.”
John 3:8
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We cannot see the wind, but we can see what it does. We cannot
see the Spirit of God as He works on the heart, but His power brings
us new life. That power creates a new person in the image of God.
Although we cannot see or hear the working of the Spirit, we can
see what He has done.
If our hearts have been changed by the Spirit of God, our lives
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will show the change. We cannot change our hearts or make our
characters like God’s. We must not trust in our own strength or
believe that our good deeds will save us. But our lives will show
whether we have the grace of God in our hearts. It will change our
characters, our habits, and the way we live. Other people will see
the difference between what we used to be and what we now are.
The character is not shown by one good deed or even a bad one.
The character is shown by the way we speak and act day after day.
It is true that we may act in the right way without the power of
God. We may do good so that other people will think well of us. We
may even avoid evil because we want to look right in the sight of
our friends. Even a selfish person may give to a good cause, or help
the needy. How can we know, then, whose side we are on?
Who owns our hearts? Whom are we thinking about? Whom
do we love to talk about? Who has our warmest love and our best
work? If we are Christ’s, we think often about Him, and our kindest
thoughts are of Him. We have laid at His feet all we have and are.
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