Thread: Were you born Reformed or converted?

Originally posted by Ivan

Originally posted by Augusta
At my old church they would get a child to say the "sinners prayer" and then they would write their name and the date on a certificate and send it home with the child.

Now that is sad.

Needless to say that certificate expedited our leaving that church and diving into a reformed church. We had been chicken up until then because neither of us had any background in the reformed protestant churches. We didn't know if we could just show up or what. We were so ignorant that we put it off for too long.

At age 26, in 1968, I was converted from New Age belief (Theosophy in those days) to the Lord Jesus by the witness of a woman from Estonia. At her direction I attended and was baptized in a Pentecostal church (Rock Church in Manhattan), and eventually (elsewhere) came under the thrall of Charles Finney´s Pelagianism (it is by my will that I continue to be saved, and grow in grace) and Wesley´s perfectionism "“ a deadly combination. This lasted around 20 years, with an accompanying belief (so I´d been taught) that I had to undergo a "œcomplete fast"� (20, 30 days or so, depending on initial body weight -- never could do it) so as to receive the Second Blessing or Baptism in the Holy Spirit so as to attain "œcomplete sanctification"� or genuine holiness. This resulted in a Christian life that was, as I have put it, 95% nightmare and 5% blessing, not to mention the ignominy and grief I caused the Lord in my desperate backslidings.

Still, I had truly been saved by Him, and He showed me His grace in a lethal situation such that I knew it was all of grace and none of my self-effort, where His love and faithfulness were manifest despite my terrible failures. Shortly after this experience of grace I was brought into an RCA church which showed me mercy and acceptance, and later a Reformed Baptist Church which introduced me formally to the 5 points, and also befriended me. I later went back to the RCA, and the 3FU "“ which I loved "“ until the pastor left and they began to apostatize, and then didn´t have a good church until I moved to NYC and attended and joined Redeemer PCA in Manhattan, where I became a member.

The doctrines (and the Spirit) of grace were life in the midst of death; I had been caged in error and sin, tormented by devils, and then the Lord let me loose, to joy in His presence. Now I am passionately Reformed, to the glory of His grace.

Steve

Can the answer be "yes"?

To set you in a context of where I "started", even after being converted, check this out:

My first sermon was about how you can recieve the second blessing of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, only if you act first to "get" the blessing. Why? Because God can't act until you first act.

Don't laugh. Cry.

At the time, I meant every word of it.

No, I was not born reformed. I was open to understanding "grace" one year after this sermon was preached. The first book I read (besides Scripture) was "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ" by Owen. I finished it saying, "What else COULD it be? He's right!"

That was the end of one era of heresy, and the beginning of real sanctification.