JUNE RADIO MESSAGE GOD'S PART INFAITH h ile , in our previous message, we have endeavored to show you God’s side of salvation, it is important also to see man’s relationship to be coming a member of the Lord’s fam ily. Even as the former is revealed to us in John 1:12, so the latter is found here, too. Let it be clearly said that there is one and only one thing anyone has ever been able to do to become a child of God. This is to open his heart and receive Jesus Christ by faith (Eph. 2:8, 9; Rom. 10:9, 10). Wp need to understand what it means to “receive” Christ. The mar riage relationship is a good illustra tion. Of the hundreds of couples who have stood before me to take their vows, never has a single individual asked me, “What do you mean by ‘Do you receive or take this man (or wom an) to be your lawful wedded husband (wife) ?’ ” There is nothing intricate about it. It is not a physical attitude but rather one of the heart and mind. Someone may ask, “Why are we to receive Jesus Christ?” In I s a i a h 53:4 and 6 we read, “Surely he (Christ) hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did es teem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our inquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” It is because the Lord Jesus Christ did something for us that we must do something with Him. (Notice I did not say for Him.) Receiving Jesus Christ as our Saviour is the act which gives us the right to become the children of God. It opens up the way for God to com municate this new life to us. Believ ing is actually receiving. It is possi ble to know all the historical facts
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about Christ, accepting them as true, without receiving the Saviour person ally into the heart and life. It is at this particular point that thousands of people make a fatal mistake. In a general sense one may believe all that the Bible tells us about Christ and yet fall short of a personal appropria tion. Just sitting down at a well-filled table will save no one from starva-. tion. He may believe that the food is good and nourishing and still perish with hunger. It has to be personally appropriated. The same thing is true in the spiritual realm. There are many people who would add conditions or rituals as a neces sary part of this divine act, but God’s Word is eminently clear on the matter. If Christ is not competent and sufficient to save us, then who is? A preacher once related, “One day I was in conversation with a woman about her salvation. I told her the only condition was the simple one stated in John 1:12. She couldn’t be lieve this was enough. I reminded her of the Scriptural fact that when one receives Christ he has everything God can offer in the way of salvation. “It is the best in all the universe, for the very Creator Himself lives within you.” How true he was! Yet, so many people stumble over the simplicity of salvation. This portion of the Bible also strikes a death blow to the popular liberalistic preaching of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Such human as sumptions are heretical to the teach ings of the Word. A child of God is something to become, not that which we are by human nature. We are children not in name only but by the communication of God’s own divine nature within us. Having God’s life we therefore have God’s love and desires as a part of our new nature. Certainly we are not worthy 28
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