{"id":5337,"date":"2016-11-02T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/daily-e-votional\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2016-11-01T17:17:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T00:17:31","slug":"%ef%bb%bfi-have-always-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/%ef%bb%bfi-have-always-been\/","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffI HAVE ALWAYS BEEN!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Acts 4:12<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>\u201cNor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It makes me cringe when I hear someone state that they have <strong>always<\/strong> been a Christian. <strong>Beeep!! <\/strong>That is so far from scripturally sound that it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.<\/p>\n<p>The sad thing is that many people fail to truly become believers because they have been taught that they have always believed in God. If someone has \u201calways been a Christian,\u201d then the Bible is false. God\u2019s Word repeatedly tells us that we must experience a new birth in order to obtain salvation.<\/p>\n<p>Nicodemus was a devout and knowledgeable teacher of the Jews. He knew all of the man-made requirements that seemingly would make a person right with God. Jesus shook his thinking when He told Nicodemus he had to be born again (John 3:16).<\/p>\n<p>The question you need to pose for yourself is this: \u201cHave I experienced the new birth?\u201d If not, you need to open your heart, confess that you are a sinner, and ask Jesus to come in and make you His child. Have you done that?<\/p>\n<p>May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acts 4:12 \u201cNor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.\u201d It makes me cringe when I hear someone state that they have always been a Christian. Beeep!! That is so far from scripturally sound that it makes the hair [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}