Are You Born Again?

Changed from an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly! This transformation that takes place in nature is a good illustration of what happens when a person experiences the new birth.

New Birth Is Needed

In God's eyes, our natural state is unattractive, too, since we are born in sin and formed in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). As we grow, we continue to live after the desires of the flesh and mind (Ephesians 2:3). This is opposed to God's purpose in creating us, and shows our need to be made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Only the new birth can give us new desires and a new life. The caterpillar does not become a butterfly by education, religion, or self-effort. Likewise, it is only by the miraculous metamorphosis of new birth that your life and mine can be made beautiful to God.

New Birth Is From God

John 1:12,13 state the facts of the new birth: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the [children] of God, even to them that believe on His Name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Only those born of a certain man have the right to be recognized as the children of that man. So only those who are born of God have the right to be recognized as the children of God. Thus it is that those who receive Christ as Saviour and Lord become children of God. To receive Christ is to have true repentance to God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

How Are We Born Again?

John 3:5 tells how we receive the new birth--"water and the Spirit." What the water signifies is plainly told in Ephesians 5:26. The water is the Word of God--the gospel of Christ preached to sinners like you and me--which, by the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit, produces the new birth. (See also 1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18.)

When Are We Born Again?

John 20:31 gives us the time of the new birth: "and that believing ye might have life through His Name." It is immediately upon believing that we receive life eternal. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36).

You Must Be Born Again

Nothing that we can do will enable us to "see" or "enter the kingdom of God." For this, the Lord Jesus says, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7).

Without the new birth, we have no life toward God. By being "born again" through faith in the Lord Jesus, we receive everlasting life. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Without the new birth, we are "condemned already" (John 3:18). By being born again, we are freed from judgment (John 5:24). If you are to be eternally saved, it is absolutely necessary for you, dear reader, to be born again.

"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out" (Acts 3:19). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31).

From MWTB

George Whitefield's Text--John 3:3

George Whitefield's (1714-1770) zeal for evangelization carried him across the Atlantic between Great Britain and America thirteen times. He passed back and forth between the two continents as though they were a pair of rural villages at a time when travel was a very dangerous undertaking.

It was at Oxford University when he was a young man of twenty-one that he was marvelously delivered from a life of debauchery and evil associations. This is what he has to say about that time: "God was pleased at length to remove my heavy load and to enable me, by a living faith, to lay hold on His dear Son. And oh! with what joy was I filled when the weight of sin left me and an abiding sense of the pardoning love of God broke in upon my disconsolate soul!" In his ecstasy he wrote to all his relatives: "I have found that there is such a thing as the new birth."

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" was Whitefield's text on both sides of the Atlantic. In season and out of season, in public and in private, he ceaselessly proclaimed that message. He felt that he was sent into the world to call the attention of men to that one mandatory truth. He made the doctrine of the new birth his universal message because he found that it met a universal need, preaching more than three hundred times from this memorable and striking passage.

"Born again." What does it mean? It means, if it means anything, that the miracle of Creation's morning may be reenacted: a man may be made all over again. He may be changed root and branch; the very fiber and fabric of his manhood may be transfigured.

I cannot explain the creation of the universe; but, for all that, here is the universe! I cannot explain the mystery of birth; but what does it matter? here is the child! I cannot explain the truth that, darting like a flash of lightning into the soul of that Oxford student, transforms his whole life; but here is George Whitefield!

Whitefield's powerful, melodic voice is legendary. On one occasion he preached--without any means of amplification--to a crowd in Glasgow, Scotland, numbering nearly 100,000. His voice is said to have resembled an organ, a flute, and a harp all playing at the same time! His evangelistic ministry continued for more than thirty years resulting in revivals which swept England and America in the 1700's. He preached over 18,000 sermons to multitudes on village greens, street corners, fairs, festivals, in open fields and in churches that were so full he had difficulty reaching the pulpit. His message that men might be remade, regenerated, born again by faith in Christ, caused thousands, including eminent preachers, poets and philanthropists, to commit their lives to Christ.

"I am now fifty-five years of age," he said in one of his final addresses, "and I am more than ever convinced that the truth of the new birth is a revelation from God Himself, and that without it you can never be saved."

"Why, Mr. Whitefield," inquired a friend one day, "why do you so often preach on 'Ye must be born again?'"

"Because," replied Mr. Whitefield, looking solemnly into the face of his questioner, "Ye must be born again!"

--Adapted from Life Verses, Vol. 3, by F.W. Boreham

Four Powerful Testimonies

These four testimonies represent millions of untold people in America who believe themselves to be right with God because they have bought in to an easy form of Christianity that is nothing more than an insurance policy to save a person from hell. Christ's power is not only to save one from hell, but to change His followers by giving them new hearts and making them more like Him in a lifelong process called sanctification. If you didn't change, then you are not one of His. Please watch these testimonies and examine your own testimony.

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Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/realtruthmatters

HT: http://www.crosstalkblog.com