TO BE BORN AGAIN
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
I have served in active ministry for several years now, and one of the things I encounter often is a crooked or incomplete understanding of what it truly means to be born again.
Many believers do not fully grasp what was made new in them when they accepted Christ, and as a result, they live defeated even though God calls them triumphant and victorious.
20th-century evangelist Oswald Chambers put it this way: “The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is—has God changed the things that really matter to you?”
To be born again is not an act of behavior modification, but a complete turnaround of the soul; a transformation tested, matured, and proven as various crises arise.
Child of God, you have not been merely refurbished; you have been saved to the uttermost. Christ has become the center of your affections, and because you now carry His mind, you desire no part in what grieves His Spirit within you. Instead, you yield to His leading and His counsel with increasing ease. Praise Him for this grace!
Prayer: My Father, I thank you for this truth. Thank you that Christ is my reality and that I am being changed daily by the power of faith. Help me to live conscious of the new creation life within me, above the systems of this world, aligned with the mind of Christ, and steady in the divine patterns you have set for me. Strengthen my desire for what pleases you, and keep my heart anchored in the new life you have given me, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
CI.
RELATED RESOURCES
• John 3:3
• Ezekiel 36:26
• Titus 3:5
