“According to the research, almost half of Americans are ‘born-again Christians.’  But out of this group, researchers found that their beliefs and lifestyles are virtually indistinguish- able from the rest of the world around them.    Many of these ‘born-again Christians’ believe that their works can earn them a place in heaven, others think that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, some believe Jesus sinned while he was on earth, and an ever-increasing number of ‘born-again Christians ‘ describe themselves as only marginally committed to Jesus.  (Barna Group, “Barna Study of Religious Change Since 1991 Shows Significant Changes by Faith Group,” August 4, 2011, Barna Group, “Most American Christians Do Not Believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit Exist,” April 10, 2009.) 

  . . . There are a whole lot of people who think they’ve been born again, but they are  dangerously deceived.  Imagine you and I set up a meeting for lunch at a restaurant, and you arrive before I do.  You wait and wait and wait, but thirty minutes later, I still haven’t arrived.  When I finally show up, completely out of breath, I say to you, ‘I’m so sorry I’m late.  When I was driving over here, my car had a flat tire, and I pulled over on the side of the interstate to fix it.  While I was fixing it, I accidently stepped into the road, and a Mack truck going about seventy miles per hour suddenly hit me head-on.  It hurt, but I picked myself up, finished putting the spare tire on the care and drove over here.’

If this were the story I shared, you would know I was either deliberately lying or completely deceived. Why? Because if someone gets hit by a Mack truck going seventy miles per hour, that person is going to look very different than he did before.

In light of this, I feel like I’m on pretty safe ground in assuming that once people truly come face-to-face with Jesus, the God of the universe in the flesh, and Jesus reaches down into the depth of their hearts, saves their souls from the clutches of sin, and transforms their lives to follow him, they are going to look different. Very different.  People who claim to be Christians while their lives look no different from the rest of the world are clearly not Christians.”                                                                              From Follow Me (p. 16-18), 2013