YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN Friday July 3, 2015
Text: John 3:1 – 10 Memory verse: v 3
That a person must be born again speaks of spiritual birth, but Nicodemus understood Jesus as referring to a physical rebirth. Nicodemus had no true understanding of the spiritual nature of the kingdom which Jesus had come to establish, nor of the spiritual character required for admission to it. He therefore met his difficulty by telling him that all men, be they Jews or Gentiles, must be made new in the inner man by a spiritual birth, before they can enter into his kingdom and enjoy its privileges. Jesus expected Nicodemus to know these (v 10). Nobody qualifies for the Kingdom except he/she is born again (3:5).
Many people ask questions about born again; when and how can someone be born again. “The beginning of Christianity consists in this, that we know ourselves not only to be corrupt in part, but to be wholly dead in sin: so that our nature has need to be created anew, with regard to its qualities, which can be done by no other power, but by the divine and heavenly, by which we were first created” as Geneva Bible Notes. If you didn’t begin your Christianity by being born again, you need to go back and surrender to Jesus today or the Kingdom will elude you.
Food for Thought: What do you really understand by born again?
Prayer: Lord, Jesus Christ, I surrender my life to you. Create me anew in your own likeness so that I will be qualified to enter into your Kingdom.
