GOSPEL:
ACCEPT CHRIST; SALVATION: INVITATION TO

But the Bible knows absolutely nothing about passive reception, for the word receive is not passive but active. We make the word receive into “accept.” Everyone goes around asking, “Will you accept Jesus? Will you accept Him?” This makes a brush salesman out of Jesus Christ, as though He meekly stands waiting to know whether we will patronize Him or not. Although we desperately need what He proffers, we are sovereignly deciding whether we will receive Him or not.…

We have been taught that passive acceptance is the equivalent of faith when it is not. In the Greek, this word receive is active, not passive. You can go to any of the modern translations and you will find that they get across the idea of “take” and “took.” “As many as took him,” says one fine translation, “to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.”

It is taking instead of acceptg.… It is an act of the mind and of the will and of the affections. It is thus not only an act of the total personality, it is an aggressive act of the total personality.

When you bring that thought over into this text, the Holy Spirit is saying of the children of God: “As many as aggressively took Him with their total personality.…” There is no inference that they could sit and quietly accept. Every part of their being became a hand reaching forth for Jesus Christ. They took Jesus as Savior and Lord with all of their will and affections and feelings and intellect. That is why it says in the Greek: “As many as actively took Him.…”

John 1:11–13

Faith Beyond Reason, 9, 10.