When a tractor treads the ripe fields of the new season, regardless of that particular tractor's purpose, it leaves behind a trail of impression--
nothing is left the same. So it is when God tills the dissension of our hearts and becomes the steadfast King and companion with whom we have a real relationship: he cannot leave us unchanged. If someone claims to have accepted Christ and they show no signs of a Christ-like passion/life-attitude, then they must not have truly met with the Jesus of the Bible and heard him speaking into their lives. When he calls us out of our sin and we obey, we cannot simply keep silent about it, we
long to change because we love
Him in whose image we were made.
For me, I can often tell, for the most part, simply by talking with someone a bit whether or not they have met and obeyed Christ personally, even if they are regular church-goers. We were made in the image of Christ, the embodiment of God, and although we can never be a perfectly cookie-cut image of our savior, we are called to resemble Christ to the best of our ability.
If we are indeed resembling Christ to the best of our ability, then no one should be able to say we have not been changed. That's why knowing Christ--truly knowing Him--must equal following Him.
“The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of
the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians,
and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the
living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and
heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the
gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books,
institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus
Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others
interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ,
we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out
brochures to places we have never visited." ~Brennan Manning
