BEING BORN AGAIN

BY BEING BORN-AGAIN, WE HAVE BECOME ONE SPIRIT WITH JESUS

But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. – 1 Corinthians 6:17

Once we were born-again, our spirit was transformed by the union with the Holy Spirit. In our spirits, we are united with Jesus. In our spirits, we are perfect as the Holy Spirit is.

From Ephesians 5:30, we learn that: “... We are members of His body, His flesh and His bones.” Every Christian is a member in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) and all of us together are the church. Because the church is the body of Jesus, there a very special unity among true Christians. Over the years, I have met Christians of many nationalities during mission trips, traveling in different countries and also by hosting many missionaries for different periods of time. Once meeting any of them, there was an instant bond between us, proving that Jesus unites us and makes us function in unity in His body.

Because we are one in the Spirit with the Lord, it means that we desire what He desires, we seek holiness and righteousness, we want to glorify Him by all we do and become more (and more) like Him. In our born-again spirits, we have the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and as we love Him more and grow in the knowledge of His Word, the attributes of the Holy Spirit become more and more our attributes, replacing the attributes of the carnal nature. This is the purpose of our lives on earth: to become more and more like our Lord, do His works and help as many people as possible come to salvation, and in the end we will spend eternity in heaven.

IF WE HAVE BEEN BORN-AGAIN THROUGH THE SPIRIT, WE SHOULD DO EVERYTHING IN THE SPIRIT

And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. – Galatians 5:24-25

This verse is not referring to a literal crucifixion, but a metaphorical one. To keep something “living” alive, we feed and hydrate it. If we want to kill it, we can do so by not feeding or watering it. How can we no longer feed our fleshly nature? To do so, it is not really complicated but we truly need to be continually committed.

When our fleshly nature urges us to get angry, because things are not happening as we want, if we choose to keep our calm, asking the Holy Spirit to help us, we will not feed the carnal nature. In time it will become easier (suggested prayer: “Holy Spirit, please help me not to get angry. Help me keep my calm, because I want to glorify the Lord in everything I do and be a good example, amen”).

When we do something wrong, instead of being harsh with ourselves and getting upset, we choose to thank the Lord for helping us correct what we have done wrong and to do better next time. In other words, we do not feed our fleshly nature if we cease to behave as it urges us to and we are replace the wrong behavior, with what the Bible says we should do.

As we continue to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, we learn to live more and more through His power, and as a result we get angry less and calm down faster; we feel less and less offended or hurt, and it takes a shorter amount of time to forgive those who hurt us. As a result, it becomes more and more easier to keep our peace and calm that come from the presence of the Holy Spirit.

THROUGH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST WE CAN BE BORN-AGAIN AND INHERIT HEAVEN

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for You. - 1 Peter 1:3-4

Because Jesus rose from the dead, after He has died for our sins, we can be born-again through Him and become perfect in the spirit. Without being born-again, no one makes it to heaven. In Jesus, we know that we have an ”uncorruptible and undefiled” inheritance that never diminishes or changes. This is the eternal life received through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Thank You Lord, for choosing and transforming us by the new birth, through the Holy Spirit, that we may be Your children forever!

Heaven is the perfect place that God created, where no sin ever entered to spoil or diminish it’s value. In heaven everything is wonderful, holy and pure, just as God is. There, all true Christians who live in obedience to the Lord, will spend eternity.

INTO CHRIST WE HAVE BECOME A NEW CREATION

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. - 2 Corinthians 5:17

For one to be grafted into Christ and joined to Him, one has to be born-again, through the Holy Spirit, by faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Does that mean that the whole being is transformed? No, only the spirit becomes a new creation, and that is the “inward man” as Paul calls it.

Our spirit or the inward man, has become new. The old sinful nature in our spirits has been removed and replaced with God’s righteous nature. The old things, our old sinful nature, has been done away with and our spirits has become new, perfect and sinless. But we have to change our minds from thinking according to the worldly pattern to God’s model, by studying, learning and applying God’s Word in our daily lives. It takes time to replace the old ways of doing things and perceiving life, with God’s truth, but the more progress we make, the less we desire to sin, the harder it is for us to lose our temper, the more we love and forgive others. In other words, we become more and more what God created us to be in the first place and that is to become love, being more like Jesus. Through the Holy Spirit we received new life inside of us and we are to let it shine through us by the way we think, feel, talk and act.