Last week I was in Guatemala training missionaries that will go into the 10/40 window and plant churches. The topic for the week was the Holy Spirit. We looked at His role, His function, and then the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. During our time together, I realized that my class people did not understand the “Born Again” experience apart from having repented, feeling convicted, and asking Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. You might ask why I think it is important to understand the experience?
First, it has to do with our identity. Every person born has an identity. Think about your race, your sex, and your culture. That is the fabric or essence of what you are and what you represent. Yet, in the kingdom, most people are clueless about who they are and what they represent. The very first and last temptation Jesus faced was about His identity – Matt 4:3, Luke 23:39. “If you are the Son of God….” We will face the same temptations our whole life, and if we do not know who we are and what we represent, we will always fail at representing the fact that we are now children of God and living in a kingdom that is out of this world.
To understand what happened at the born-again experience, we must search the scriptures to help us understand. In John 3:3-5, Jesus clarifies that no one can enter the kingdom unless they are born-again. Nicodemus thinks it is a natural birth, but Jesus was not referring to a natural birth but a spiritual birth.
John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
It is a spiritual birth that happens when you get born again. This spiritual birth is also the very thing that makes us a ‘new creation.” This is a key point to understand because God did not just renew your old self or gave you a makeover when you were born-again. He crucified your old self with Christ, meaning He killed your old man and created a whole new being. The born-again experience is an actual act of creation. Being born-again, you are a created being that has never existed before. You are now a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that have been called to proclaim His praises because He has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light – 1 Pet 2:9.
2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all things have become new.
To understand what this verse really means, we must understand that this new creation is not your old self but is actually Christ living His life in you. Your old self has passed away. Many believers live and set their expectations on being natural beings trying to have a spiritual experience instead of understanding that they are spiritual beings having a natural experience. Your old man is crucified and dead. It should not be you living but Christ living in and through you.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Your old self was crucified with Christ. In his death and resurrection, He included you and all your past. Yet you live, not you, but Christ is living through you. Here is an interesting interaction. If I am dead, which I am, and He is alive, which He is, then whatever life I experience must be His life.
1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
The next question would be: How do I make this happen? You can’t.
Look at that verse again in Gal 2:20. It clearly states that we are crucified. 2 Cor 5:17 says the old has passed away. That means our old is incapable of living this life or making it happen. What makes it possible is this statement:
And the life I now live I live by the faith OF the Son of God.
Dead people have no faith. Lazarus had zero faith when Jesus called him out of the grave – John 11. It is not our faith. It is His faith in what He has done with the new creation. God believes in the fact that Jesus in us can live the life of the new creation. We must stop trying and surrender to the Life of God in us – Col 1:27. Christ in us the hope of glory!
God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son – Rom 8:29. Only Jesus can live like Jesus.
I am regressing here, but it is so important for us to understand. We all are trying to fix our old selves and it ends up looking like the zombie apocalypse. The earth is filled with a new creation, men and woman created back into the image of His Son. What the world needs to see is a people that reflect Christ. Jesus said that if we saw Him, we would see the Father – John 14:9.
Should that not be the same for us? When people see us, they should see our Father.
Next week we will continue looking at the new creation as a creational act of God.
