04/09/26 IT IS BEING AND DOING
Our BE-ing AND Our DO-ing are both involved in God's TRANSFORMING and CONFORMING work of salvation.
All people are born with a "bent to sin." All have sinned. All need salvation.
Some people start life with a mixture of exceptional cultural, familial, moral, relational, educational, financial, physical, and/or spiritual advantages. Those people are often spared some of the horrors experienced by those on the other end of the spectrum. Still, those extremely blessed people need God's salvation through faith in Christ. They need their nature and behavior to be changed. Sadly, many of those people are satisfied with the blessings and never see or accept their need for the Blesser. Though they are not actually, "saved," they fit into the category of "Cultural Christians." Others plunge themselves into a life of chaos and despair, totally separated from the Christian image.
Some people start life in the most deprived and depraved of natural, moral, and spiritual conditions. Though they may realize their seemingly hopeless circumstances, they often cling to their spiritual degradation. They may climb out of their social pigsty, but they refuse to be lifted out of their spiritual cesspool.
So, we end up with two groups of people: the saved and the unsaved. Interestingly, some of those who are unsaved manifest a brighter, more positive, more appealing demeanor than some of those who claim to be in a right relationship with God. It could be that a person had a relationship with Christ, but they have failed to hold-on and, continue, abide, remain, grow, move forward with Christ, live by faith. Or it could be that the believer is young in the faith and is at an early stage of spiritual development, walking in what little enlightenment he has received.
We come out of darkness into light suddenly, but we move into greater light incrementally. We become a believer instantaneously through a crisis (sudden, transforming) experience, but we become more Christlike, more conformed to the image of Christ through growth in grace and walk in faith (progressively). The new believer's sins are washed away in a moment, and the faithful follower of Christ is cleansed from the Old Man (Carnal Mind, Double Mind, the Law of Sin and Death, the sinful nature,) in a moment (subsequent to conversion, the new birth), but our understanding and development is progressive. Purity is instantaneous, but maturity is progressive.
However, choosing to hold on to attitudes and actions which are unlike Christ leads to a separation from Christ. It may start as a slow, quiet drifting, but it will eventuate in an obvious and determined course away from God's leading and light.
If a Christian person refuses to move forward in Christ, refuses to seek God with his whole being, then he is presenting a false image of Christ and His salvation. This turns people away from the true Jesus, and it will result in the "drifter" openly rebelling against the rule (the Lordship) of Christ in his life. Continuing to turn from God leads to hardening of the heart and stiffening of the neck leads to suddenly being cut off, and that without remedy.
The transformation of our being, our nature, begins with the Divine work of regeneration and is eventually followed by the Divine work of being filled with the Holy Spirit (entire sanctification). Our being is changed by Divine action and our lives are changed by faithful obedience to God's indwelling and leading. Being and doing are part of the one life's cycle. The Divine life cycle is to be (become) what God wants us to be, and to do (behave) in the way God wants us to act. The result of a right relationship with God is that we obey God from a pure heart.
1 Timothy 1:5
5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
