Born Again - Part 1

            This article is written particularly for those who consider themselves Christians, although anyone desiring truth might find it helpful.

            Jesus himself used the term "born again" in John 3.  Jesus instructed Nic that following God has  nothing to do  with a particular family of origin, religion, culture, or belief system.  Scholars believe the term "born again" can be more accurately translated in English as "born from above."   Jesus explains, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.  So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it wants.  Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-8; NLT).

            We exist in a physical (natural) realm, but the spiritual realm (supernatural) cannot be understood in the same way.  Heavenly Truth is not always understandable with earthly paradigms.  The earthly paradigm of birth is event driven, human effort intensive, and results subject to natural laws of earthly existence.  When a baby is discovered in his mother's womb, he is given a due date.  Pregnancy is a labor intensive process with a climax of the new born breathing on its own.  The new life is now part of the family of origin and human race made of the same stuff as the very first human created in the natural world. 

            The heavenly paradigm of birth from above, however, is much different.  It has no earthly timetable, all effort is God's, and the changes are mostly in the inner invisible realm (likened to the wind).  Each individuals response to God is unique in terms of a conversion experience.  The Holy Spirit reveals the Light of Jesus to a darkened spirit part of our being.   Being born from above is predicated on acceptance of God's love as demonstrated through Jesus Christ dying on a Cross and being raised from the dead.  The Spirit of God continues to breathe life into our spirit to renew and recreate our being from the inside out.  This inner change of heart comes as a result of surrendering the natural body, mind, and soul to the supernatural power of God.  Spiritual growth occurs with an increasing compliance with this process of surrendering to the ways of God.

            The birth of a baby is nothing short of a miracle.   As I witnessed the birth of our three natural-born children, I was each time reminded of the absolute wonderment of God's gift of life.  Natural birth is a miracle.  How much more then, is spiritual birth a supernatural process.  We are each born with a personal spirit, but the spirit part of our being is not fully awakened until it is born from above.  When we surrender to God the right to rule our being, the rebirth of our spirit begins.  In order to reach the maximum potential as the person we are meant to be, this rebirth process must continue throughout our lives (discussed more in a Part 2 article).

            If you’ve been around the Church for any length of time, you’ve heard someone talk about “decision for Christ”  in reference to a “conversion “ experience.  But, being born again is more than acknowledging a need for a Savior.  A decision of a natural mind is not enough.  You may also have heard someone talk about “accepting Christ into your heart.”  Although the heart is where the action is, mere acceptance of a message of truth is not enough for rebirth of spirit.  Accepting and deciding may be a good starting point, but in order for the spiritual realm to intersect with the natural realm, it always requires yielding of the natural.  Surrendering control of your inner person is the key issue. 

            What might surrender look like?  Again, the finer details of surrender may look different for each individual, but here are some possibilities.  It means submitting beliefs and values to a higher power and being willing to re-align to a God-defined standard of Truth.   It means giving up control of the ability to decide for yourself right from wrong.  It means letting go of a self-made identity in exchange for God reshaping of who you are as a person.  

            The transformation is somewhat of a mystery, but over time the practice of surrendering control will become evident in the natural realm.  For example, you may come to an understanding of family that includes a desire to grow your relationships closer without feeling like you are losing your identity as an individual.  Your value for healthy life recognizes the harmful affects of smoking cigarettes, so you give them up without it becoming a sacrifice.   Your concepts of love, happiness, and fulfillment become more in line with what God has already outlined in the Bible.  Your employment, standards of sexual morality, living arrangements, or consumer habits may need to change;  not simply because you made a decision to change your behavior, but change occurs because the "wind" of the Holy Spirit is working a change of heart.  It is also not a result of "trying harder," but surrendering at and cooperating with God's work at a deeper level. 

            The Psalmist penned the following words two thousand years before the message from Jesus quoted above.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God.
    Renew a loyal spirit within me.
 Do not banish me from your presence,
    and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  ....

You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God"  (Psalm 51:10,11,17; NLT).

The ancient King David cried out for God to change his heart.  He recognized the necessity of supernatural intervention.  We see here that brokenness and repentance are part of what accompanies a cleansing of heart.  Repentance simply means to turn around.  Surrendering to God requires turning away from human control to divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  When a person surrenders internally, the external behaviors follow.  Many people face great frustration because they try to change their behavior without being fully surrendered in their heart.  

            John writes, "Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me" (John 14:6; NLT).  Jesus is the way to be born from above.  Believing in Jesus and following his example of surrendering to the will of the Father is the way to awaken the eternal part of your being and have eternal life (John 3:16).   It is not about trying to become good enough, holy enough, strong enough, or any change of behavior.  Born again is simply believing in Jesus to transform your life.  If you make it more complicated than that, you are likely believing something that is not true.   Adding things that are not true may quickly lead to disappointments, false hopes, and missing the divine call on your life.  It may also lead to falsely believing you are a Christian because of your good deeds rather than having a heart surrendered to God. 

            My experience in Christianity goes back about six decades. I recently came to the conclusion that much of my understanding of "born again" was superficial or incomplete at best.  I had a born again conversion experience in my childhood and served in leadership for many churches over the years.  I even have a doctorate degree in Religious Studies from a conservative Christian school.  However, I recently discovered deeper revelation that being born from above is also a journey of radical and continuous transformation that cannot be explained in the natural realm (discussed more in Part 2). 

            Are you "born again?"  If you are not absolutely certain you can talk to God right now and be sure.  You may wish to read Part 2 of this article to discover the ongoing process of rebirth.  

            If you need another human to talk to about this, please contact me and I would be glad to discuss this more. 
by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry

Birthday Robbery

             A Presidential election is upon us once again.  Political issues come and go, but some issues go far beyond the realm of politics, into existential realities of life itself.  

            One such issue is the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion.  The procedure is carried out on late-term unborn children who are in most cases able to survive outside the womb.  After the combined decision of a mother not wanting the child and a medical professional who executes the procedure, the baby is killed in the birth canal.  After labor is induced and the baby's head has already appeared in the world, an abortion practitioner uses an instrument to crush the skull.  Then the remaining body of the baby is removed from  its mothers body.   To add to the cruelty, groups like Planned Parenthood (PP) have been caught selling the slaughtered baby's body parts.  PP uses these funds for aborting more babies,  propaganda campaigns disguised as "sex education," and further degrading of women.  This kind of treatment of human beings is barbaric.  It is birthday robbery for thousands of children in the US each year. 

            The debate last week between the two top candidates for President addressed this topic.   Can you believe the activities described above are proudly endorsed by one of the candidates?   The democratic party candidate (with the initials HRC) claims to have a history of advocacy for children.  But her party platform states in writing, and HRC strongly verbalizes her support for partial-birth abortion and PP.  Advocating for children by wishing them dead  is a double standard.   Framing PP as a health-care provider and ignoring their activities of extortion and cover-up is fraud.  This is also called deception.

Franklin Graham has called HRC out on this by saying, "You can't say you've spent your life standing up for children, when you support killing them in the womb." 
            Robbing children of their birthday is only one type of thievery HRC actively participates in.  The corruption of her thirty year political history is too great to list here.  Like never before in the history of Presidential election campaigns, HRC has been in collusion with  national press to influence public opinion in her favor.  The mainstream media has one-sidedly promoted HRC in her defense of PP and partial-birth abortion (and many other issues).  That is a specific type of deception.  It is called propaganda. 

            This powerful lobby doesn't have the final say.  The voters have the final say.  Your vote is your voice on this matter.  If you are  a person who cares about justice for all, I hope your voice will be heard.  Please do not turn your back on the voiceless children, but make sure your vote is counted to support life whenever you have an opportunity to vote.   A Proverb says,

"Rescue those being led away to death;
    hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
    Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?"

Proverbs 24:11-12

            To NOT vote is a vote.  Not voting is a vote for death.  If you are one of those people who says they don't like any of the candidates, then vote WITH the one who has the strongest stand for life (if you feel you cannot vote FOR them).  Voting AGAINST the greatest evil, is better than not voting at all.  Besides, the names on the ballot aren't as important as the party platforms they represent (see my previous blog May God Be Made Great in America, Again).   When a candidate (and platform) confuses a barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion with "reproductive health," that must be called evil.  The ancient Israeli prophet spoke these words, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness ...  Therefore ...  their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel."  (Isaiah 5:20,24).  Simply put, rejecting God's created design for human life and natural order, creates chaos and irreversible disorder.  

            If you care about America, there are some additional things you can do about this.  First, you can pray.  Humble yourself and seek the face of God Almighty and turn from whatever ways are displeasing to Him.  He responses with healing and forgiveness when hearts are surrendered to Him (see 2 Chronicles 7:14).   Another thing you can do is turn off your TV and refuse to subject your mind to the propaganda campaign.  Abstaining especially from what they call "news," will clear your mind to receive truth in better places (particularly the Bible).  Then, encourage your friends and family to resist the temptation for propaganda as well, and vote for candidates who truly have a record of supporting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  

            Oh yes, and one more thing.  That same candidate that equated infanticide with advocacy for children also called everyone who disagreed "deplorable" and "irredeemable."  So, am I deplorable if I choose to think about how to avoid doing evil for good and good for evil?  I think not.  I think you are not either.  As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing."   If fighting evil is called deplorable, I'd rather be labeled as such than to do nothing.   

            Irredeemable?   If there would be such a thing as an "irredeemable person," who would decide how to define it?    No person should be declared irredeemable.  Even people who align themselves with a gruesome practice like partial-birth abortion are redeemable.  If one person is declared unworthy of redemption, then the entire human race is equally irredeemable because we are all made of the same stuff.   Thus, when HRC condemned people as irredeemable in her speech, she declared herself, and her own supporters as irredeemable. 

            Do the Democratic party leaders believe in a kind of government that needs to control people in order to  "purify" the population from people they deem as deplorable and irredeemable?  Yes, we heard it directly from the mouth of their candidate running for President and their platform is full of such language.  This is called fascism (belief in a purified superior race).  We need only to look back in history as far as Nazi Germany to see what kind of horrific robbery this imposes on peoples lives.  By the way, PP's founder Margaret Sanger had strong ties to the Nazi leaders and comes from the same philosophy. 

            Politicians may use words to spin people's thinking in a particular direction, but the final authority lies with a higher power.  There is always hope in the Redemption of God's amazing grace.  God's mercy and justice are perfect.  God's actions do not have to satisfy political correctness because they exemplify absolute correctness.  God's vote is the final vote. 

            The One who came into the world to redeem the world (see John 3:16-17) has the final say on this.  True redemption is spiritual.  It is a supernatural event and process.  The primary goal of evil is to steal our redemption.  Jesus himself said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10).  The true nature of the battle against evil is in the spiritual realm.  Jesus came and won  that battle.  The spiritual world has a mirror image in the physical world.  Jesus uses imagery of a thief  seeking to rob a person of life in contrast to the fullness of life he offers as a free gift to all who believe in him.  The thief is the enemy of our soul.  The thief  tries to make people believe they are irredeemable.  The thief tries to rob people of re-birth into an eternal life with God. 

            "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him ..." (John 3:16) is not irredeemably condemned to hell, but will have eternal life.  Surrendering your heart to him washes away guilt and shame.  Even the shame caused by birthday robbery has been taken care of  by the death of Jesus on the cross.   Christ's death resurrection gives each person the chance to be redeemed.  My hope is that you will receive that redeeming power today.   You may disagree, but you are never irredeemable.  by Ed & Stephanie Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry