Attending Christian school for your entire childhood, going to church
every Sunday with your parents, being baptized, reading the Bible,
praying, speaking Christian-ese, spending four years in a Bible College
or Seminary . . . none of these things makes you a Christian! Experiencing
all of this and turning your back on it merely exposes you as an
apostate; a false convert. You were never saved to begin with! You neglected to actually receive salvation. Faith cannot be borrowed; it
is not a hand-me-down. If you never appropriate it and make it your
own, it does not matter how Christian your parents might be, you can
speak all the Christian-ese you want and undergo all the behavioural
modification you want, merely imitating genuine Christians, but you
yourself will never be a Christian because of it. Real salvation
consists of a permanent change that cannot be reversed or undone.
"As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore." John 6:66There are many pastors standing in the pulpit, many ministers serving in the church, many people sitting in the pews who think they are Christian but have neglected to actually receive salvation. Scripture repeatedly talks about those who think they are saved but whom Christ says, "I never knew you!" At least three times Scripture warns us to examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith or merely self-deceived (2 Cor. 13:5; Phil. 2:12; 2 Pet. 1:10). There are many ways in which you can miss the Kingdom, and miss it you will if you try to enter by any other way except through Jesus and according to His mandates. The way into the Kingdom is narrow. You do not get to negotiate the terms of your entrance. If you do not enter by the means with which Christ has set in place, then you will never enter the Kingdom! The only person you are fooling is yourself.
"They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us." 1 John 2:19
"The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9
"Unless one is born again from above he cannot see the kingdom of God... he cannot enter the kingdom of God" John 3:3, 5