Jesus Christ is my God!
Issued 03.06.2001
Religious conversions and rebirth
What is the content of your religious conversion? It can be very dissimilar between different people. What should the content be so that it would gain the acceptance of God? Bible's Jesus claims that He gives the saving experience which is more than all the religious conversions. Without it you are deceiving yourself with your current religion and you are not a true believer. Be born again!
Religious conversion
The content of a religious conversion can be very different. In one case it means the experience which gives the faith that God exists. In another case it affects the decision to become a good person who obtains God's favour. In the third case it means the experience that causes falling in love with God because you experienced His love first.. Who is the true believer in the meaning that he has the acceptance of God?
The content of a religious conversion can be very different. In one case it means the experience which gives the faith that God exists. In another case it affects the decision to become a good person who obtains God's favour. In the third case it means the experience that causes falling in love with God because you experienced His love first.. Who is the true believer in the meaning that he has the acceptance of God?
To be born again
Bible's Jesus claims that He gives the saving experience which is more than all the religious conversions. He doesn't consider saved a person who believes in the existence of God and who does good works, because He said to Nicodemus, who was a devout Jew: "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." John 3:3
The birth is the beginning of every human life. Jesus proclaims that man needs a new beginning for his life, which is as fundamental experience as being born.
So He doesn't say that being born would be the same as rebirth, but He speaks about the spiritual birth. He doesn't teach the reincarnation, where it is believed that a person wanders from one body to another.
The most of the religious people get angry with Jesus when they notice that Jesus doesn't consider them true believers. Nicodemus didn't become angry, but he was attentive because he realized that he lacked something essential.
Bible's Jesus claims that He gives the saving experience which is more than all the religious conversions. He doesn't consider saved a person who believes in the existence of God and who does good works, because He said to Nicodemus, who was a devout Jew: "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." John 3:3
The birth is the beginning of every human life. Jesus proclaims that man needs a new beginning for his life, which is as fundamental experience as being born.
So He doesn't say that being born would be the same as rebirth, but He speaks about the spiritual birth. He doesn't teach the reincarnation, where it is believed that a person wanders from one body to another.
The most of the religious people get angry with Jesus when they notice that Jesus doesn't consider them true believers. Nicodemus didn't become angry, but he was attentive because he realized that he lacked something essential.
To be born of the Spirit
Nothing can be born without parents. Jesus describes the spiritual birth as follows: "I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." John 3:5-6 Jesus doesn't speak about the birth of natural descent, but brings forth the revolutionary message: Your spirit can get a new birth.
He says that God's Water and Spirit are as though your parents of whom you were born and became a child of God. "Yet to all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1:12-13
Nothing can be born without parents. Jesus describes the spiritual birth as follows: "I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." John 3:5-6 Jesus doesn't speak about the birth of natural descent, but brings forth the revolutionary message: Your spirit can get a new birth.
He says that God's Water and Spirit are as though your parents of whom you were born and became a child of God. "Yet to all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1:12-13
How can this be?
Nicodemus was wondering how it is possible to be born again. He didn't know the promise of God concerning the new birth, though he knew very well what was written in the Torah. Maybe it offended his religious pride when Jesus said to him: "You are Israel's teacher and do you not understand these things!" Maybe Nicodemus blushed but he didn't snap at Jesus: "Come on Jesus, I have read the Torah for over 30 years, I know better than you what it is written there."
Surely Nicodemus had read the next passage: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezek. 36:25-27 Nicodemus should have been able to associate this passage with the words of Jesus. Jesus gave him such a good clue when He spoke about being born of "water and the Spirit".
Nicodemus was wondering how it is possible to be born again. He didn't know the promise of God concerning the new birth, though he knew very well what was written in the Torah. Maybe it offended his religious pride when Jesus said to him: "You are Israel's teacher and do you not understand these things!" Maybe Nicodemus blushed but he didn't snap at Jesus: "Come on Jesus, I have read the Torah for over 30 years, I know better than you what it is written there."
Surely Nicodemus had read the next passage: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezek. 36:25-27 Nicodemus should have been able to associate this passage with the words of Jesus. Jesus gave him such a good clue when He spoke about being born of "water and the Spirit".
Clean water for the cleaning of your spirit
Who got the idea that Jesus would have spoken to Nicodemus about the baptismal water? How could it be possible that baptismal water could wash the spirit of anybody? A person, who loves more the outward piety than the inward purity, has invented the miraculous white magic of the sacrament of the baptism. Only words of God can purify the spirit of man. Moses compares God's words with rain: "Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." Deut.32:2
Jesus tells to Nicodemus also the content of God's words which are used to purify our spirit when we are born of the Spirit of God: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone, who believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:14-16
The joyful message that tells about the crucified and risen Jesus is the water, which is sprinkled on your spirit. Is it going like water off a duck's back? Often the problem lays there that the message doesn't touch the spirit of a listener. It is listened only intellectually or emotionally, but the mind is not opened for the real meaning of the message.
Who got the idea that Jesus would have spoken to Nicodemus about the baptismal water? How could it be possible that baptismal water could wash the spirit of anybody? A person, who loves more the outward piety than the inward purity, has invented the miraculous white magic of the sacrament of the baptism. Only words of God can purify the spirit of man. Moses compares God's words with rain: "Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." Deut.32:2
Jesus tells to Nicodemus also the content of God's words which are used to purify our spirit when we are born of the Spirit of God: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone, who believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:14-16
The joyful message that tells about the crucified and risen Jesus is the water, which is sprinkled on your spirit. Is it going like water off a duck's back? Often the problem lays there that the message doesn't touch the spirit of a listener. It is listened only intellectually or emotionally, but the mind is not opened for the real meaning of the message.
Internalize the gospel
God had sent snakes to bite the Israeli, because they had rebelled against God. Numbers 21:9. According to God's command Moses made the bronze snake and put it up on a pole. The persons bitten by snakes who looked at the bronze snake stayed alive. The healing power didn't come from the bronze snake but from God. He gave his mercy to man who looked at the snake on the top of the pole. The real deed of man was not the looking but the submission. When he was looking at it he obeyed God and confessed that he deserved the punishment which God had ordered to him. On the top of the pole had to be the picture of a snake, because snakes were the punishment that God had ordered to them.
All of us we have rebelled against God and therefore our spirit is agonizing. Now Jesus has been lifted up through the gospel so that people could look at Him. In His crucifixion you see the punishment you deserve! Or do you want to see that snake?
If I look at Jesus and see Him crucified for the sake of mysins, I will be cleansed from all my impurities and get a new spirit. Is your relationship with God based on this experience? If not, you are not saved, whatever your other experiences or doctrines.
How do you know that you have internalized the gospel deeply enough? The example given by Jesus tells it. The poison of a snake doesn't affect any more in your spirit. You are not any more rebelling against God but you confess: "Jesus Christ is my Lord and my God."
God had sent snakes to bite the Israeli, because they had rebelled against God. Numbers 21:9. According to God's command Moses made the bronze snake and put it up on a pole. The persons bitten by snakes who looked at the bronze snake stayed alive. The healing power didn't come from the bronze snake but from God. He gave his mercy to man who looked at the snake on the top of the pole. The real deed of man was not the looking but the submission. When he was looking at it he obeyed God and confessed that he deserved the punishment which God had ordered to him. On the top of the pole had to be the picture of a snake, because snakes were the punishment that God had ordered to them.
All of us we have rebelled against God and therefore our spirit is agonizing. Now Jesus has been lifted up through the gospel so that people could look at Him. In His crucifixion you see the punishment you deserve! Or do you want to see that snake?
If I look at Jesus and see Him crucified for the sake of mysins, I will be cleansed from all my impurities and get a new spirit. Is your relationship with God based on this experience? If not, you are not saved, whatever your other experiences or doctrines.
How do you know that you have internalized the gospel deeply enough? The example given by Jesus tells it. The poison of a snake doesn't affect any more in your spirit. You are not any more rebelling against God but you confess: "Jesus Christ is my Lord and my God."
A false salvation as an obstacle to the salvation
The bronze snake is a good example of how things given by God so easily are changed to superstition in the hands of men. Later the Israeli worshipped that bronze snake as an idol. A crucifix is the same kind of magic thing for many Christians. However God has been able to use a crucifix to clarify the gospel in the case of some persons. The same danger is in the gospel meetings when the decision to give life to Jesus is expressed with lifting up a hand or coming to penitent form before the audience. These actions cleanse nobody, but in the case of some persons God has received these actions as the expression of the submission where a person confesses that Jesus died also for his sins. These situations are changed to the source of a false salvation then when people believe that they have become believers through them, though they didn't internalize the gospel through them.
Often people have closed their heart to the gospel for just the reason that they have a religious experience which causes them to think that they are already inside the God's kingdom.
God considers them illegitimate children whom He doesn't acknowledge. Woe them! They are so close, but still outside. "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2Cor.13:5
What does Jesus mean to you? Test your heart! Do you detect their protests against God or Jesus? If you find spirit of rebellion humble yourself to confess your sins and look at Jesus who has suffered the punishment you deserved. Love and punishment face on the cross.
The bronze snake is a good example of how things given by God so easily are changed to superstition in the hands of men. Later the Israeli worshipped that bronze snake as an idol. A crucifix is the same kind of magic thing for many Christians. However God has been able to use a crucifix to clarify the gospel in the case of some persons. The same danger is in the gospel meetings when the decision to give life to Jesus is expressed with lifting up a hand or coming to penitent form before the audience. These actions cleanse nobody, but in the case of some persons God has received these actions as the expression of the submission where a person confesses that Jesus died also for his sins. These situations are changed to the source of a false salvation then when people believe that they have become believers through them, though they didn't internalize the gospel through them.
Often people have closed their heart to the gospel for just the reason that they have a religious experience which causes them to think that they are already inside the God's kingdom.
God considers them illegitimate children whom He doesn't acknowledge. Woe them! They are so close, but still outside. "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2Cor.13:5
What does Jesus mean to you? Test your heart! Do you detect their protests against God or Jesus? If you find spirit of rebellion humble yourself to confess your sins and look at Jesus who has suffered the punishment you deserved. Love and punishment face on the cross.
The Bible version used in references is NIV