Call to Commitment

Unconverted churchgoers

       1.     Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 

       2.    You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 

3.      You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 

4.      Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

I think that the apostles knew that, when they wrote to the Christian churches, that they were not writing to a congregation of totally converted people. Yet they wrote for the benefit of all, converted and unconverted. The apostle, John, taught that those, who left the church, proved by their departure that they were never true believers, though they formerly congregated with them: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us” (1 Jn.2:19). 

 Paul showed that “from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Ac.20:30). He said that divisions in the church were necessary to reveal those who were approved as true Christians: “For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you” (1 Co.11:19). Later, he challenged the members to examine their own lives to make sure that they were genuine: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Co.13:5).

 Jeremiah, especially, but other prophets also, revealed that there were false prophets and priests, among the leadership of Israel: “The priests did not say, 'Where is the LORD?' And those who handle the law did not know Me; The rulers also transgressed against Me; The prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit” (Jer.2:8). Jesus taught clearly that the same trend reached a climax in His day. He affirmed, concerning the leadership in Jerusalem: “But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you” (Jn.5:42). “Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, 'I do not know Him,' I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word” (Jn.8:55). He told His disciples: “And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me” (Jn.16:3).