To all who are anxious for the salvation of their souls, come to Christ for help. He says to you as He said to Nicodemus, "unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
He is knocking at the door of your heart, asking for entrance. He longs to renew your heart, filling it with a love for all that is pure and true. He longs to crucify self for you, raising you to newness of life in Him. Nicodemus was converted as a result of his interview with Christ. How is it with you? Will Christ knock at your heart in vain? Will you refuse him entrance? Or will you welcome him as an honored guest?
His presence of love in your life is of more value than the whole world. Its length, its width, its depth, its height, cannot be estimated. It will purify your heart and renew your mind, giving you a new capacity for knowing and loving God. Do not let self hinder you from hearing the call, "You must be born again." Fear not to make a full surrender of yourself to Christ. Place yourself, without reserve, under His control. Learn what it means to cease from sin; what it means to have a new heart, to bear the divine character.
As you behold Christ, self will sink into insignificance, and you will be changed into his image, "from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." This study will open to us what the Bible teaches about the born again experience.
1. What must take place before we can see the kingdom of God?
John 3:3
2. What two questions did Nicodemus ask which showed that he did not understand what Jesus was saying?
John 3:4
3. What two births must a person experience to enter God's kingdom?
John 3:5
Note: Being born of water is the experience of baptism. Being born of the Spirit refers to our spiritual birth. In baptism we participate in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this experience the life of sin we were born with is crucified with Christ on the cross, in exchange we receive the life of Christ. This is the new birth experience. It is not an improvement of the old life. It is His Life in exchange for my old life of sin.
4. Is being born of the flesh the same thing as being born of the Spirit?
John 3:6
Note: When Adam and Eve were created in the beginning, Christ breathed into them the breath of life and man became a living being. It was the Spirit of God that gave life to His creation. Now it was told that the moment that they sinned they would surely die. They did not physically die at that moment but it was the Spirit of God that left them and their lives were then gripped with fear of the One who made them. This spiritual death has been our inheritance since Adam.
5. What good does the flesh profit us? What does the Spirit give?
John 6:63
Note: The flesh will profit nothing. We need not rely upon ourselves for any good thing for no good thing will ever come from it. Christ in you will produce life and produce it more abundantly than we could ever ask or think.
6. How do I have this born again experience and become a child of God?
John 1:11, 12
Note: The words received and believed go hand in hand, they mean the same thing. To believe in Jesus Christ is not only a mental assent to the truth, it is to receive Him into your life and let Him take control. Receiving Christ into your life is the born again experience.
7. Whose work is it that you believe?
John 6:28, 29
Note: By faith we have the finished, perfect work of the Lord as our own. "This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent." John 6:29. When we receive Jesus into our lives He brings all that He is with Him and this includes His faith.
8. Of whom are we born when we receive Jesus?
John 1:13
9. Who becomes our life when we are born again?
Galatians 2:20
Note: To be a new creature after a life of sin means the life is now contrary to sin, and as it says "he cannot sin, because he is born of God." His mind has been renewed, his desires and affections have been changed, and his appetites and passions have been recreated. He cannot practice sin or habitually pursue it as a course of action, not because he is shut up so that there are no temptations, but because his desires are changed and he is kept by the word of God.
10. If Christ is in you what must you consider the body to be?
Romans 8:10
Note: This is the experience of every true child of God. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." 2Cor.5:17. He lives on in his body but it is no longer a life of sin, for that life has no power over him because he is dead. "The body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Romans 8:10.
11. Who is it that works the victory in the one who has been born of God?
Philippians 2:13
Note: When you receive Jesus in your heart He is now the One who lives there. Satan may come to knock at your door but it is Jesus who answers and says that "you don't live here anymore." Then Jesus says "may I help you," and Satan flees like the defeated foe that he is!!!
12. How does one become born of God?
1 John 5:1
Note: Remember that it is the work of God that you believe. So with that in mind whose work is it that you are born of God? His work! The part that we have in all this is receiving Jesus into our lives and giving Him total control.
13. What is the victory for those who overcome the world?
1 John 5:4
Note: "Faith is the Victory." In receiving Jesus it is now He who lives in you and He brings with Him His faith, which is your victory. What an awesome thought, "Christ in you the hope of glory." He is the Champion, the Victor, the Power, and your all in all.
There is no opportunity now for anyone to say that his faith is weak. A man may say he has "weak faith" but faith is as strong as the Word of God. There is no saving faith but the faith of Christ, everything else is a counterfeit. Christ alone is righteous. He has overcome the world and in him dwells all the fullness of God. So it is only by His faith that we can be made righteous. The "faith of Jesus" will not fail us in any contest. Receive Him into your heart and life and experience what it means to be born of God.