What makes a person a Christian? How does one become a possessor of eternal life? What does it mean to be alive in Christ? Why does a person repent of his or her sins and believe on Jesus Christ when others do not? Why does one begin to pray and to seek the Living God in His Word? What causes a person to seek holiness of life and to hunger and thirst after righteousness? The answer is “the life of God in the soul of man.” Calling, regeneration, and conversion are vital, but often misunderstood biblical teachings. Yet, these very doctrines are essential, inseparable aspects of what makes grace “amazing.” We must understand what the new birth is, how people may know they are converted, and how new life in Christ works itself out in the Christian’s life.
The National Center for Family Integrated Churches presents, Conversion, a message given by Jeff Pollard at the Power of the Gospel conference. Good morning. What a great blessing we have this morning to join together in the name of Jesus Christ and to open His Word together. Please open your Bibles with me to 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2.
We're going to read verses 1 through 14, focusing on verses 13 and 14. Would you please stand with me as we read God's holy Word? Let's give our attention to the Word of God. Now, we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him That ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word Nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitting in the temple of God, showeth himself that he is God.
Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks all way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath chosen from the beginning, hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's unite our hearts in prayer.
Holy Father, we come before thee this morning as Thy dear children, pleading with Thee as our Heavenly Father, to come, send Thy Spirit, exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, give power to Thy word, Help me as I speak to Thy people. Lord, I pray that Thou wouldst open the heart of the lost and build up Thy people in the faith. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated.
In this short letter to the Thessalonians, Paul expressed his thankfulness to the living God for their growing faith in Jesus Christ and their love for one another. They were suffering persecution and enduring their trials with patience and faith in the Lord Jesus, and with pastoral care Paul comforted them with the blessed truth of Christ's second coming. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Apparently someone had told these suffering saints that the day of Christ's judgment had already arrived, and this had caused confusion in the congregation. Paul corrected this false teaching by reminding the Thessalonians that before Christ returned, a great apostasy must first take place, And then that man of sin, the son of perdition, would be revealed, working powerful satanic signs and wonders.
Paul declared that the Lord Jesus would return in astonishing brightness and destroy him and his followers." And he solemnly, Paul solemnly told them that those who did not believe the truth would be given over to believe a lie and God would damn them and that brings us to our text verses 13 and 14, particularly verse 13, we have a very simple structure. One, Paul thanked God for the Thessalonian believers. Two, God loved the Thessalonian believers. Three, God chose them. Four, God called them.
Now with this passage Paul drew a sharp contrast between the damned who refused the truth of Christ and the believers who received it. This raises an important question, and it's an important question for all of us. Why did some believe a lie? And why did others believe the truth? The answer is the life of God in the soul of man, calling, regeneration, and conversion.
The life of God in the soul of man is the name of a book written by Henry Scugel, a 17th century Scottish minister. Now, we will not be outlining his book, but we will use his title for the point that we are making. Sinners repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of God's effectual, spiritual work in them, and their lives are forever transformed. Now may our loving Heavenly Father grant us the light of His Word and Spirit as we consider three things. One, effectual calling is the work of God alone.
Two, regeneration is the work of God alone. And three, conversion is an act of God and his people. If actual calling is an act of God alone. Regeneration is an act of God alone. Conversion is an act of God and his people.
And may our loving Heavenly Father grant us much grace as we consider first that effectual calling is an act of God alone. Now this is abundantly clear in the sacred text. In light of the last day's dangers of which Paul spoke, He encouraged his persecuted Thessalonian brethren, but we are bound to give thanks always to God for you. With the word but, Paul made a sharp contrast between those who received, not the love of the truth that they might be saved, and Christ people who believed the truth. Paul then comforted the believer's hearts with the phrase, brethren, beloved of the Lord.
It is almost certain that Paul's use of the word Lord here, the title Lord, means the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle wanted to comfort these suffering believers with Christ's love for them and that great love governs the rest of the verse. After encouraging them, Paul gave the reason for his thanksgiving because God hath chosen you, hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. God in his sovereign grace had chosen to save these pagans from their bondage to sin, to death, and idolatry. How?
Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Now this is the doctrine of election resulting in conversion. We must be clear about what Paul is saying, though. God does not love the Thessalonian believers because they believe the truth. It's the other way around.
In this context, sanctification of the Spirit basically means setting someone or something apart to belong to God. God loved them, God chose them, and set them apart by His Spirit, and they believe the truth. God's love came first. God's love always comes first. God's love in choosing them from the beginning and His setting them apart for Himself is the difference between the deluded unbelievers and Christ's beloved people.
Now, Paul follows this with, where unto he called you by our gospel. That is, he called you to this salvation by the gospel we preached to you. And we refer to this calling as effectual calling. So the structure of the verse tells us why Paul was bound to give thanks for the Thessalonians. God loved them, chose them, set them apart, and brought them to a great, full, and free salvation, calling them to this by the gospel of Christ Jesus.
Now there are two kinds of callings in Paul's writings. We need to take just a few moments to make this clear. You will bear with me. We have a few details to work through, But we refer to one as general call, the general call, and the other as the effectual call. The general call comes by one of two ways, general revelation and special revelation.
By general revelation we mean God's call to human beings from created things. God's call to human beings from created things. Paul describes it this way, that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath showed it unto them. How? For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.
So the general call comes from general revelation, the general revelation of created things. Creation teaches sinful human beings enough about God to be damned, but not enough to be saved. God calls sinners this way, but they can resist it. That is why our darkened hearts desperately need special revelation. For our purposes, this is the revelation of God's purpose of redemption in Christ revealed to us in the inspired infallible Word.
God declares through his servants that he has sent a Savior, the God-man, Jesus Christ the Lord. Christ died in agony upon Calvary's cross and he rose again the third day to save his people from their sins. Those who repent, those who believe on Him, will be part of all their sins and receive everlasting life. So the general call can come from created things as well as God's inspired word. But sinners can and do resist both.
Why do they resist? Because no human being will believe the Gospel call in his sinful state. We are dead in trespasses and sins. Our thinking is vain, our understanding is darkened. Our life is alienated from God because we are ignorant and our heart is blind.
We will not and cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto us, and neither can we know them because they are spiritually discerned. We don't have the spiritual apparatus to take it in to understand it. We reject it. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be. We need God to intervene in our lives or we will perish for all eternity.
Sinful man needs the effectual call. Paul says that God has chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit. Whereunto He called you by our gospel, by the good news. Numerous uses of the word call exist in Scripture, but Paul and other New Testament writers often use it to describe the powerful and effectual calling of God the Holy Spirit unto salvation. Effectual means that which gets the work done.
Now taking the Spirit's or taking the Scriptures testimony, the Shorter Catechism and Spurgeon's Catechism define effectual calling this way. As the work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us by, or convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely, offered to us in the gospel. Effectual calling is God the Father's act. Effectual calling is his act of speaking through the proclamation of the gospel in which he summons sinners to himself in such a way that they respond by believing this good news, by believing the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what set apart by the Spirit and whereunto he called you indicates.
And this is fundamental to Paul's theology of salvation. We see it in Romans chapter 8 verse 29. For whom he did for know, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that we might be the firstborn among many brethren, he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. This call cannot be the general call because in this verse all those that are called are justified and glorified.
Now are justified and glorified. Now in this, we see the same structure of our text here in Thessalonians. God loves, God chooses, God calls. Our verse is clear. God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, election, which we heard so wonderfully set before us last evening.
He set you apart by the Spirit and called you by our gospel. Effectual calling. It is the outworking. The two are connected as they flow from God's eternal purpose. This setting apart by the Spirit for God is indeed the life of God in the soul of man.
It is God's act alone in the darkened human soul that opens the eyes, opens the ears, that we might believe his wonderful truth. But we must consider resistible grace for just a moment. When we speak of effectual calling, or as it is sometimes referred to, irresistible grace. We do not mean that every act of God's grace is effectual. Can sinful human beings resist God's grace?
Yes. They resist God's grace in the general call from created things. They resist God's grace in the call of the gospel, in the call of the truth of God's Word. As the martyr Stephen said to the Jews, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. This is why Jesus said to Nicodemus, ye must be born again.
Number two then, Regeneration is an act of God and an act of God alone. In the history of theology, effectual calling and regeneration has sometimes been viewed as the same thing. The Puritans made the clear distinction between effectual calling and regeneration. Effectual calling is the summons, the work of the Spirit and the Word. Regeneration is the moment God imparts spiritual life in the soul.
The Holy Scriptures use a number of terms to describe this miracle of grace, regeneration. The Old Testament refers to it as circumcision of the heart, a heart of flesh, a new spirit, a new heart, and a heart to know God. The New Testament speaks of being born again, Born of the Spirit, born of God, born of Him, quickened together with Christ, created in Christ Jesus and a new creature. So what is it? When we take all of the terms that Scripture uses regarding regeneration, we may define it as the creative act of God in which he imparts spiritual life in sinners.
Or we can put it this way, regeneration is the life of God in the soul of man. It is powerful, it is radically transforming. It is always effectual. God calls and imparts life. Now, we are passive in this.
God is at work. It is sometimes referred to as a secret work. None of us sits back consciously and thinks, oh, I believe God is at work, regenerating me. It comes to us as our eyes begin to understand what the Word of God is teaching us. Our ears hear, our hearts respond, we see our darkness, we see our wickedness, we see our rebellions, and we see the glory and the beauty of Christ, we see that He is desirable, we want Him, and we want that glorious salvation that he sets before us.
God's heavenly power in the human heart, divine life, is the giving of a new heart. It is a spiritual resurrection from the dead. Now Christ himself taught us about this. He taught regeneration. It should, and it should strike all of us with a sense of solemnity that the most important passage of Scripture on the new birth was delivered by Christ to a religious man.
Not a drug addict, a murderer, an alcoholic, a prostitute, a liar, not a thief, an adulterer, a fornicator, a homosexual. The Scriptures set before us here that Christ discoursed on the new birth to a religious man who obviously stood in need of it. The Scriptures rightfully ask, who can say I have made my heart clean? I am pure from my sin. Christ himself boldly taught, For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things which defile a man. The problem is my heart. The problem is your heart. We are dead, depraved, doomed, and we can do nothing to save ourselves. We can no more regenerate ourselves.
We can no more birth ourselves than we could physically birth ourselves. And with that in mind, we consider Christ's words to Nicodemus. Jesus told this highly religious man, except a man be born again, he cannot, he cannot see the kingdom of God. When Nicodemus replied, how can a man be born when he's old? Jesus answered, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Christ's words to Nicodemus were eternally significant, both to that Pharisee and to us. Every human being that has been, every human being has been born of the flesh, yet not every human being has been born of the Spirit. Natural human birth produces sinful children in a sinful world, but human birth does not, cannot produce children of God. Only the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. Again, this is a miracle of grace.
God who is Spirit implants spiritual life within his people, and it changes them. It changes them radically. Our beloved Lord was instructing Nicodemus in the single most important lesson of life. If a man, woman, or child wants to enter God's kingdom, only a radical inward transformation can make this happen. And this inward transformation is the life of God in the soul of man.
We come now to this vital point. Effectual calling and regeneration are works of God alone. They never have been, they are not now, they never will be the works of men. There is no switch in you that you can flip and get yourself born again. God is the sole author of effectual calling and regeneration.
That is why we call these things monergism. Monergism, which means one working. Most modern theology holds to synergism, more than one working. Synergism means that God gives the sinner grace that brings him to the point of believing. But he must make the decision by which he is born again.
He must flip the switch. He must let God save him. This is crucial. What Paul is saying in this text is that effectual calling and regeneration are the works of divine monergism, not the works of man, and that the Thessalonians believed because of that mighty work in their souls. And that is why he gave thanks to God.
Now that brings us to consider this. If actual calling is an act of God alone, regeneration is an act of God alone. Conversion is the act of God and his people. Paul says, God has chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. While effectual calling and regeneration are monergistic, conversion is truly synergistic.
The word conversion comes from the Greek word that means to turn or to return. In Acts 3.19, Peter preached, Repent ye therefore, and be converted that your sins might be blotted out, may be blotted out. And in this context, converted means to change one's mind, to change one's course of action. So conversion means to change one's manner of life in a particular direction with the implication of turning to God. It involves turning from on one hand and to on the other.
Conversion is our willing response to the gospel call. Why are we willing when others are not? Because of God's work of monergism. We respond synergistically. Monergism.
We respond synergistically. Repentance and faith are the fruits of new life. They're not the steps to new life. They're the acts of new life. Conversion is our willing response, and we sincerely repent of our sins.
God doesn't repent for us, we repent because we see our sins for what they are. We believe, God does not believe for us, We believe because God has shown us what we are. And we see the glory and the beauty of a Savior. We see that He has provided for us pardon of sin and eternal life in His crucified resurrected Son. And we believe it.
We believe it. We do this because God loved us. God chose us. God called us like He did the Thessalonians. He set us apart by His Spirit.
And this is why we praise God for His grace. It isn't simply that God didn't have to do this. It's that in His mercy, in His astonishing grace, He came to us. He sought us out. He came to you.
He came to me in my filth and my wickedness and opened my heart. That is grace for which we will praise Him in this world and forever in the world to come. We have a perfect example of this in a woman named Lydia, a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira. Luke records in Acts, whose heart, listen carefully, whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. There we have it.
God's work, our work. God's act, our act. The word opened here means to make understanding possible. God opened her mind, her heart. This is the effectual call and regeneration.
God is at work. And to give heed means to pay close attention. God wasn't paying close attention. Lydia was, because God opened her heart, and she followed after Christ. So the God of grace opened her heart, monergism, God working.
And Lydia gave her attention to Paul and began to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Synergism, Lydia working with God. Repentance and faith are the two parts of conversion and they arise from effectual calling and regeneration. God's life in the soul, God's life, God's almighty life, the power that created the universe, that raised Jesus from the dead, moves in our little hearts and it produces repentance. We repent, we believe as the Thessalonians did.
And as Paul gave thanks so ought we every day of our lives for the grace of God. It is all because of God's gracious calling and regeneration. Now, We need to consider this then. There is no conversion without repentance. Much of what is called gospel preaching today leaves out the notion of repentance.
This is to destroy the gospel of Jesus Christ. Repentance primarily means a change of mind that leads to a change of action. When Paul gave his testimony before King Agrippa, he said, I showed first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. This is saving repentance. A change of mind that leads to a change of life.
That change of mind turns from unbelief to believing. If you believe the Lord Jesus Christ, it is because of the wonderful grace of God. You believed because of God's mercy. This is why the Westminster and the 1689 Confessions define repentance as an evangelical grace, whereby a person being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth by faith in Christ humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrancy, praying for pardon and strength of grace with a purpose and endeavor by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God unto all well-pleasing in all things. Does this describe me?
Does this what you call your conversion? Perhaps no single sentence better describes repentance and conversion than Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians. They turned to God from idols to serve the living God. One sentence. Everything that we've been saying is right here.
Here we see true conversion, repentance, faith, turning to God from idols. To what? To a life of obedience to God. It doesn't stop with repenting and believing. True repentance and true faith goes on to a life of obedience.
Obedience to the Word of God. Conversion means repentance. Conversion means believing. Paul says of the Thessalonians, and belief of the truth. Our gospel.
Faith is the mental act of believing. And belief always has an object. Once again our confession says, by this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word. But the principal acts of saving faith, having immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. That is so beautifully said, but this is the truth.
The object of our faith is Jesus Christ as set forth in the gospel, the crucified and resurrected Lord of glory, God's eternal Son made flesh that he might die and rise again, or the justification, the sanctification, the glorification of his people. He doesn't save them in part, he saves them entirely. Now why does all this matter? What applications may we make of this? When the Holy Spirit opens our heart as he did the Thessalonians, We repent of our sins and believe the gospel truth.
Modern-day Christianism gives us easy believism. Walk an aisle, sign a card, shake the pastor's hand, make a decision. Yet far too often, in far too many cases, this produces No change of life. Homeschoolers, be warned. Just because your children can repeat the catechism does not mean they have a new heart.
A new heart is life from God, and it cannot but reflect the things of God. It's different for all of us, I understand that. Our conversions, stories, our personal histories may all be quite different in their details. We don't all have the same emotional responses. We don't want to tie anybody to a particular feeling.
But The point of the matter is that when God works in the human heart, it cannot leave that life the way it was. There is repentance, and we don't repent once. It becomes a life of repentance. It isn't that we believed once. We go on believing because we are sustained by the new life that God has set within us by His grace and for His glory.
Number one, consider this, it is the life of God in the soul of man alone that transforms our life. This was a promise of the New Covenant. God said, Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. Who's the subject of the action here. It is God, not us.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you. And a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you in heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." This is God's promise. And this is what Christ was announcing, and this is why in the glories of the New Covenant, our congregation should be filled, made up of Those who are converted, who give evidence of conversion.
If the grace of God that you profess does not teach you that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, that you should live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world. It is not the effectual grace of God. This is what He's about. What does He do? He fills our hearts with a love for Him.
He loved us first, and we love Him back. He gives us a love for His word. We want to hear from him. We want to know him. Our heart's desire is to know, to walk with, to honor, to obey the one who loved us from eternity.
None of us does this perfectly. I don't want to saddle anyone here with the idea that I'm talking about perfect people. I couldn't stand here and preach. But I say to you, without hesitation, a new heart means a new life. Secondly, the life of God in the soul of man is our only hope against false doctrine, spurious conversions, and goat-filled congregations, As Beekie and Jones declare in a Puritan theology, even more remote from the thought of Orthodox Puritanism is the modern evangelical heresy that one can accept Christ and claim to be born again and expect to go to heaven while living an unsanctified life.
Brethren, the very reason God changes us, the very reason in His love that He transforms us and gives us a heart of flesh, taking out the heart of stone, is that we might love Him and walk with Him with joy and praise and thanksgiving, giving all the glory and praise to Him. The happiest people in this world are the holiest people, those that are walking with the Savior. That is where true joy is. This is life eternal. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.
It is this doctrine of God's act that helps preserve us from the man-centeredness of our age. Monagism alone gives all the glory of salvation to God. Monergism alone crushes the self-exalting pride of man. Monergism alone, listen, of man. Monergism alone, listen, monergism alone makes grace amazing.
When John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, It was not an Arminian hymn. I once was lost, but now am found. God found him. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me.
Newton didn't help God save him. You read his biography. And by the way, you didn't either, and neither did I. If you sit here today, cherishing Jesus Christ as your Savior, It is because God cherished you in eternity and moved in your soul, and you believe the truth. Monergism alone sets biblical Christianity apart from all other theological views, denominations, and world religions.
The life of God, number three, in the soul of man, is the only hope for holy living. We cannot make ourselves holy. There is still remaining sin in our flesh. We struggle and we strive, and this gives some people trouble, But that struggle is very often the sign of the life they're concerned isn't there. The fact that we hate our sin, the very fact that we despise it, that we want to be free from it, that we want to walk with Christ and bring our Heavenly Father glory, that we want our good works to shine, and therefore His glory might be seen by men.
That's because of God's glorious work. That's because of the life of God in the soul of man. It is because of the life of God in the soul of sinful human beings that a life can be transformed, that there is repentance, faith, genuine conversion, radical desire for holiness, a desire to walk in the truth, to cast off false doctrine, and to live a life of purity, righteousness, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, which Christ promises will be filled. Calling regeneration and conversion transforms one's life. And conversion transforms one's life to love Christ, to love His Word, to love His people, and to love holiness of living as defined and described by the Holy Word of God.
So my dear friends, rooted in God's eternal purpose, Effectual calling and regeneration are the works of God alone. And when we gather, we should always, always be praying that as we come to hear the Word of God, that God's Spirit would be moving in our midst to build up the Church of Christ, to encourage his people, and to save the lost. And when the life of God enters the soul of man, it produces that blessed fruit of repentance and faith in Christ Jesus as he is set forth in the glorious gospel of the grace of God. Paul thanked God that the Thessalonians experienced this. And I say to you, I know from my own life, and having pastored for some years, I know it is so in the life of others, American Christianism often blinds people to think that they are right with God when they have no reason to believe that God has ever done a work in their souls.
I appeal to you with every fiber of my being. Hear the Word of God. Examine yourself by God's Word, not by your feelings. Is there this life in your soul? I'm not asking how well you did last week.
How well you do day by day? Is there the desire to walk with Christ? Is He alone the love of your life by which all the rest of our human loves take their place or move into their proper perspective? Do you love Christ? The soul that is alive in him loves him back.
Let us then Believe the truth of the gospel. The eternal God-man became flesh to become the sin-bearing substitute of his people, the prophet, the priest, the king, who saves to the uttermost all that come to God by faith in Him. All repent of your sin, change your mind, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and you will be saved. Let us believe the truth of the gospel and may all the glory be God's forever and ever. Amen.
Holy Father, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that thou wouldst edify and build up thy beloved people how I thank thee for them. I love these people. Lord, I thank thee that thou has done such a great work in so many of them. Keep doing that great work, and oh Father for those who do not know thee, How I plead with thee in the great and amazing grace by which we came into thy kingdom, that thou which'd convict them, open their eyes, open their hearts like Lydia, that they may give heed to thy word, that they might believe on Christ and be saved. We ask it in Jesus name, amen.
For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God, And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org.