What does it take to be born again?

What it isn't

Being born again isn't becoming religious. We don't decide to start taking church seriously, and say, "I'm going to make sure that I regularly attend". It isn't doing religious things, like praying or reading the bible. It isn't hanging out more with other people who go to church, and trying to clean up my life a bit. It isn't stopping some of the things I used to do that I know were clearly sinful, and doing some new things that are less so.

The go to passage on the new birth is John 3.

John 3:1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus was a religious man. He was a pharisee. The pharisees were well known for their religious zeal. They really focused on doing what they believed were the right things to gain favour with God.

They would keep ceremonies, some found in the bible, and some that they had added based on what they though the bible was saying. They would go to worship regularly, pray regularly, and read the scriptures regularly.

But despite all this, they weren't born again.

Complete change

Being born is a total and complete change in who you are from what you are. It's something that happens from the inside out. We don't try to do the right actions, but come to God and ask Him to make us completely new. So how do we come? Well there are 2 key components from our side, and those are repentance and faith.

Mark 1:15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Repentance

Repentance is doing a 180 degree turn. We're heading in one direction and we turn from that direction to the total opposite. Up until this point we've been living for the here and now. We've been doing what's right in our own eyes. We've been making excuses for our sin. We've been living for pleasure, or pride or self in one way or another. And we have been doing as we've been tempted.

But coming to God in repentance is coming to Him genuinely sorry for how we've lived our life up to this point. We pray to Him asking for forgiveness of our sins, and we see how wrong they are before God. We don't want a part of them any more. We want to head in that new direction, but we know we can't do it ourself, we need God to change us. With His strength, we want to obey His word, be humble and obey Him.

Faith

The other part is faith. We're to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and His work to save us. When we repent, we see our sin, and we see that we deserve punishment for our sin. But we can't pay that price. So we need someone to take that punishment for us. The Lord Jesus Christ came to take that punishment for our sins if we will put our faith in Him.

Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

He took that punishment, and calls us now to trust in that work. We trust too in His obedient life. His death on the cross would be enough to take the punishment for our sins, but we still wouldn't have done anything good. So when we put our faith in Christ, He gives us the perfect life he lived too. Every obedient act He did, the law that he perfectly kept. It's all given to us if we put our faith in Him.

What is it to put your faith in Him?

It's made up of 3 things, knowledge, belief and trust. We know who Christ is, we know what He has done, and we know what He will give us if we trust in Him and repent. We believe Him, we know that He cannot lie, and that because He has said that if we turn to Him in repentance and faith, that He will save us. We trust in Him, we let go of anything else we're trusting in, and give ourselves only to Him to save us. No more trusting in our own good works, no more trusting in following some ceremonies, no more trusting that God will just let us off. Someone has likened it to falling into Gods arms. To fall into someones arms requires us to trust the person into who's arms we are falling. But if we trust them they will catch us. Here we're trusting God to save us for eternity, and we fall into His arms to catch us.

Does it have to be great and perfect faith?

Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

We only need a small amount of faith, God won't save us based on how great our faith is. But what matters is it's genuine. We're genuinely trusting in Christ and His work alone to save us, nothing else.

Then what

When we genuinely come to the Lord in this way, He forgives us, and makes us new. He gives us the strength to obey Him, and our lives change. We want to pray, we want to read His word, we want to go to church, we want to spend time with other believers. But we're not trusting in those things to save us. We're now doing them because we're a new creature, and our tastes and behaviours have changed completely. We're now a child of God, and we spend the rest of our life growing. Is it an easy life? No. Christ who we follow was persecuted and rejected, so how can we who follow Him expect any less? But it is a life that we know leads to eternal joy and life. The kingdom of God matters most, but we remember that there is only one way in, and thats through being born again.