7a Christian Foundations – What do you mean “Born Again”?
So far in our study of the Foundations of our Faith, we have discussed who Jehovah is, the creation of the Spiritual World, the Creation of earth, the Fall of Adam and Eve, who is Jesus, the Christ and the Work of the Holy Spirit. Then we will continue with what the church was meant to be, to do and how the body of Christ is to present the risen Jesus, use His gifts and then, how to find your fit in this growing body of people. In thois series, Christian Foundations would like to examine the question – What does it mean to ‘be born again’?
In this series, we will consider Father God’s view of the New Creation. What do you mean when you talk about “the New Creation”? What authority has Jesus given us and how does Father God see us? We will cover these topics and more in our coming posts. So join us!
A. LIFE BEFORE WE WERE BORN AGAIN?
1. We all start with a mixture of pain and self-centeredness, pride and oblivion of our real heart condition.
We all come to Father God with the baggage of what the Bible calls ‘the Old Nature’. We all have inherited a whole package of “traits” from being human, from Adam and Eve’s actions and from the previous generations. Then we have been taught things in our childhood and teen years that feed into ‘the Old Nature’. If that wasn’t enough, we have added to the old nature by wrong choices, by deliberately choosing to ‘sin’ when we were in rebellion to God.
The Old Nature includes all the ways we lived before coming to Christ: Our motives, assumptions, ambitions, goals, values, desires, longings, imagination, expectations, intents, beliefs, needs, thoughts all combine to make up the Self system, the Old Nature.
B. SO WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE “NEW BIRTH”?
1. First of all, remember that our loving Creator is in the business of restoring us to us to our rightful place. Adam and Eve gave their authority to rule the earth to the deceiving snake in the Garden of Eden, that is to Satan. God knew it would happen but He had a plan. Down through the ages, almost 7,000 years** since the Garden experience, He is still drawing and healing people.
2. For most of us, the journey begins when we hit that ‘brick wall of pain’, the pain of the hammer of God. We really know we can’t go on like we are …not anymore. This is actually an act of mercy by the Holy Spirit, gently showing us the reality of our life.
The majority of people, in their pride, just get up and start to run their life again, thinking they can keep from falling the next time. However, the Holy Spirit doesn’t give up and He will gently come back into that person’s life and offer hope, change and a new life. It may take many traumatic, painful experiences to face the fact that the self is not capable of coping and that we need God in our lives – just as with the stories on YouTube.
Often this is the ‘stick’ because we have despised the ‘carrot’. Sometimes we have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired before we allow Him to touch our life. For those who do, a whole new world begins. We understand that we really do need ‘saving’ as we just can’t do it alone anymore; we need God to help us.
I have included two YouTube real people’s stories to help us see His ability to touch lives today.
1. I Am Second Ashley Rawls – Beauty Pageant Winner
Here is another amazing story of God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit to touch people’s lives: The Testimony Of Joseph Rojas
There are literally thousands of stories around you but if you want more stories, go to this website: www.precious-testimonies.com
3. As we allow Him to show us how He sees us, a softening of our heart begins. This is what the Bible calls ‘repentance’, accepting His version of our world. The seeds of the new birth experience will be the drawing of the Holy Spirit to an alternative power source or lifestyle, toward true repentance and dealing with the self-life.
Yes, ‘Supernatural Intervention’ is involved as well as the choice to do things God’s way. It is an experience as well as a revelation about who God is and of His grace and mercy in our world.
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John 3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” |
a. We need to get a clear picture of what Jesus meant when He talked about being born again in John 3:1-10. It is not enough to just admire the miracles of Jesus without having the personal experience of Jesus’ truths. He wants a living relationship with us, not just a ‘quickie prayer’ and we’re off. b. Conversion and the new birth is something we do and experience, as well as something supernatural that God does for us. The process begins when we commit ourselves to Jesus, receiving Him as the Answer from God. c. Our obedience is then symbolised in the act of Water Baptism and a union with Him that brings freedom from sin’s domination. We can walk in a newness of life by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, this will result in the new body we will receive at our resurrection. |
D. THE PROCESS OF REGENERATION BEGINS
1. Transformation as our Heart is touched.
Notice in the YouTube stories, or anyone else you talk to, that being perfect is not achieved with the new birth; that too is a journey. As a seed is planted, it needs to be nurtured and grown. Remember, the ‘knowing that you know’ is often beyond head understanding. The head can catch up but not take over or the new journey is stalled.
2. Few many people, their emotions are touched as their spirit has re-united with the living God. That was the connection Adam and Eve lot when they rebelled against God. For others, there this is not an emotional experience but a choice and then change begins to happen.
We are bought with a great price. Jesus death was a great sacrifice. God’s attitude is not ‘It doesn’t matter the sin that was committed’, but rather the great price He paid covers the great sin of mankind.
3. We are now on a journey with Father God
Almost every new believer will drag “baggage” with into our Christian walk. The tendency toward sin is destroyed when we decide to live life in a better, more holy way. It is the Old Nature that causes the struggle for most Christians in their walk.
| The example of the two houses:
After awhile, the Holy Spirit says “How about we deal with all this old stuff you have dragged into your new house – but the Lord’s way”. |
The abundant life we were designed to enjoy with Jesus will include what the Bible calls “Sanctification” or “Regeneration”. The wounds of trauma and abuse go deep and we must all feel compassion for the broken and damaged. However, the Lord loves us too much to leave all that ‘broken stuff’ in our heart; He wants to bring healing to the broken-hearted. Remember that is His commission from Isaiah 61!
This is a normal process for the Jesus Follower. It is not some strange illusion but something that can be embraced and used for the glory of God and healing of the body of Christ, the church.
Once the new Christian begins to recognise the self-life, there is a choice. The Old Nature will always be with us on this corrupt Earth. However, the Sin Nature, that which inspired, encouraged and enjoyed sin, died with Christ (Romans 7:25- 8:15).
4. Salvation must be accepted
Salvation is provided as the free gift from a loving, all knowing, righteous God, acing in grace towards the undeserving. It is a ‘gift of faith’, meaning we trust in what Jesus Christ has accomplished with His life and death.
There is nothing that we can do to earn this gift; our good works do not add to Jesus’ covenant with Father God. This acceptance of Jesus’ work brings God’s part of the covenant into action.
E. JESUS – THE PERFECT PATTERN
For every human being, we are being conformed into the preferred pattern, Jesus In doing this, we become ‘the New Creation’. Never has there ever been another part of the human race as we are. This is where the New Agers believe they are headed, but only Jesus is the very nature of the Father expressed in physical form. (We will talk more about this topic when we examine ‘The Challenges to the Christian Faith’ series.)
As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, we are “being conformed to the image of Christ” (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18). We are being moulded and shaped into the very way Jesus would act and think in the situations we face in this life.
Some of the ‘moulding’ will not be pleasant as we are being changed from the very heart of our being – the Old Nature. Father God moulds us by giving us life choices, by gentle teaching, by the guiding of the Holy Spirit, and thus we make that transition from the old to the new.
We were never expected to make this journey alone. It was very important that Father God broke through time and space, became that One who could help us through this journey first, before He expected us to do it. We must reach for the Lord’s help and teaching when we are in the midst of the battle, the trials of this life. It is His Life flowing through us that gives us the victory.
In our next post, we’ll take about this change, the change that is a normal part of being a Jesus Follower. Too often, those who follow Christian Foundations lose sight of the fact that it is these very changes and challenges that grow us to become more like Jesus.
Join us for part two when we look at the purposes of change and how to walk with Jesus and survive in the middle of life’ demands.
Susanne Fengler, Blog Author
www.christianfoundations.jesus-treeoflife.onfo
PS. ** What do you mean, Susanne – 7,ooo years, not millions and millions of years? Aha … keep coming back and we shall see how the time line really fits!
Tags: Born Again
Filed under: Foundations of our Faith
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