If You Are Not Born Again?
In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, Jesus is talking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. At some point Nicodemus says, ““Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Right away Jesus by-passes the statement and tells Nicodemus the following:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
So, right away Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again if he even expects to see God’s Kingdom. This comes as a surprise to the Pharisee and he, right away, asks how can this be; thinking that being born again is a physical act. Jesus follows with this:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The answer by Jesus is even more telling. Unless one is born again not only will he not see the kingdom of God but, he will also not even enter the kingdom of God. Think about that. If “you” are not born again you will never go to Heaven. It is that simple. This work of being “born again” is all of God. You cannot earn it, you cannot buy it, you cannot even demand it. Jesus makes this clear in His follow-up statement to Nicodemus:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is the one who washes you and cleans you up, makes you new and puts within you a desire for repentance towards God and for belief and submission to Jesus. Just like it is explained, first in Ezekiel 36: 25 – 27:
25 Then will I pour clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: yea, from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your body, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.
Second, from Romans 10: 8 – 10:
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
God puts within you a new heart, after cleansing you with His Spirit and with the Word of God, and with this new heart, a willing heart, you will be able to confess that Jesus is Lord (that is submission) and you will believe that He has been raised from the dead (that is trusting Jesus as the Savior) and this action is the outward sign of an inner conversion as a sign of you being “born again” by the work of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God.
How about you? Have you ever made this confession of Jesus as Lord with the belief of His being raised from the dead? If you have you have the evidence of assurance of the Holy Spirits’ working in your life and of being “born again”, having been washed cleaned and given a new heart to know, obey and love God.
If you have never done so, if you have never confessed Jesus as Lord then, not only will you never see the kingdom of God, but you will never enter into the kingdom of God. All you will have to which you can look forward is as follows in John 3: 18 & John 3: 36:
18. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
36. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
These two verses should scare anyone who has never bowed before Jesus in submission to His Lordship, and it should cause anyone to call out to God to come and work in him the miracle of salvation by the work of the Holy Spirit, and to wash him clean from all of his sins and to give him a new heart in the act of being “born again”.
The Kingdom of God or the pangs of hell. These are the only two results for any of us. If you are not born again, why would you want anything else? Will you not make that confession that Jesus is Lord? Remember the words of Jesus…
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see nor enter the kingdom of God.”
If You Are Not Born Again….. now you know…..
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