Some people have taken their Christianity the way we take a vaccination for a disease. We get a little of the disease placed in us to prevent the disease from becoming full blown. Have we taken a little of the gospel, just enough to know about it and pretend we belong to God but are vaccinated from the effects of it. John MacAruthur makes a very good point when he used this example.
Many people are full of head knowledge, they have tasted the principles of God and His glory by sitting under preaching about Him, even mouthing words at times that are truth and seen God's power but have never become born again.
Those who belong to God and have been changed into a new creation by God are brand new in their spirit and they grow good fruit. Those who claim to be believers but have not been born again, do not grow, they remain stagnant for a time and then they regress in their walk and will at some point walk away, even if only in their hearts while all the time spending time among the gathering of believers, yet they are not one themselves.
Matthew 7:16-18
"16 By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit."
1 John 2:19 "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."
