One of the most harmful false doctrines of our day is what I call decisional regeneration. It is the belief that a person is saved by making a decision for Christ by choosing Christ as Savior. But, John 1:12-13 clearly says that man is not born again by the will of man, but by the will of God.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that a person's will is not involved in coming to Christ, for He would have no one who does not want Him. However , even our desire to have Him is worked by God, for we are bent to sin and unwilling to come to God. We are blinded by the god of this world and deceived into thinking that God and His ways are not good. It takes God working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.

The will of man can only help us on to God. It is the will of God that births people into the Kingdom. What person ever heard of an infant deciding to be born? The decision for their very existence is in the hands of the parents, and so it is with the child of God. We are not saved solely because we want to be saved, but because God has decided that we are ready to be saved. In John 3:8 it says, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' Everyone that is born of the Spirit is born with the Spirit in control, not the child. Notice the words 'bloweth where it listeth.' The word listeth means willeth. Jesus is explaining the new birth as a work of the Spirit's will not the will of the flesh. Man is not in control of the time and place of salvation. We do not know where it is coming from or where it is going.

Decisional regeneration is the teaching of birth by the will of man and the flesh. Spiritual regeneration is the teaching of birth by the Spirit. Which one were you born of: the will of man or the will of God? Were you in control or was God?

-Pastor Terry Owen