“The nearer you go to God the nearer God will come to you.” James 4:8 Born Again II

How do we know when we’ve been born again?

Last week, we attempted to answer the question, “What do Christians mean by being Born Again?”  The concise answer to that question is, “…to have one’s spirit renewed in the image of Jesus.”  That sounds pretty simple, but leaves the question, “How do we know that we’ve been born again?”

So, this week we’re going to explore answers to that question.

Salvation is more than just words.

When I was younger and growing up in the church, many of us were taught that our salvation depended on two acts that we initiated.  First, we had to repent of our sins.  Then we had to accept Christ as our Lord and savior.  Once we’d done that, we were “saved.”

There was some discussion of being born again, but the main emphasis was on our having “repented” and proclaiming Jesus as “Lord.”  In the religiously primitive and evangelical environment I was raised in, the necessity of doing these two things was stressed over and over.  In other words, as long as I felt some contrition for the sins I’d committed and recognized that Jesus was Who He said He was, I was “good to go.”

Now, there is some truth to this.  Christ did say that we had to “repent.” [Matthew 4:17] And He did say that, “…no one comes to the Father except through me.” [John 14:6]

But too many of us simply go through the motions of repenting and recognizing Him for What He is.  We say the words, but don’t necessarily feel them in our hearts.  Our Spirit does not necessarily change just because we believe.  The ideas and what they mean (or should mean) remain superficial for us.  They don’t penetrate our exterior selves.  And, for us to be born again that is what they must do.

James, the brother of Jesus said, “…even demons believe…” [James 2:19] But they remain apart from God.  They do not enter heaven.  That is because just knowing about and believing in Christ is not sufficient to guarantee salvation.

The point here is that salvation is more than our just having said the words.  We can recognize and admit that our repentance and acceptance of His gifts to us are necessary.  And, we can mouth the phrases.  But until we begin to LIVE as though these things are true, we cannot say that we’ve been born again.

Walk the Walk.

I’m originally from Texas, and we had a phrase there that is very applicable to this topic. That is, “You can’t just talk the talk.  You have to walk the walk.”

Being born again is not just about what we may say or even believe about Christ.  It’s all about “walking the walk.”  And, walking the walk is about being genuine in our belief and our faith.  Superficiality will not do.  We must do more than just believe the Word.  We must live the Word and be transformed by it.

What does that mean?

“OK,” we say.  “We get that it’s not enough for us to ‘get by’ with a superficial faith.”  We understand that we have to “die” to our old selves and be “born again” as “new creations” in Christ [2 Corinthians 5:17].  We want this change and look forward to it.  We are willing to pray, study, and work for this change. But, how will we know when the change has occurred?

For a very few of us the answer to this question is easy.  Some of us are fortunate enough to have some sort of life-changing experience that results in our being brought into a new spirit that we can describe as being born again.  This can be either a traumatic event in our life, or a specific revelation.  Whichever, God speaks to some of us so directly and clearly that all our doubt and resistance to becoming a new person in spirit is instantly obliterated.  From the moment of the trauma or the revelation, we are truly born again.  Our old ‘selves’ are replaced by a new spirit, and we are instantly changed into new persons.

For others of us, the birth of our new spirit is not as dramatic but is still recognizable.  It may manifest as a more modest change or feeling but we recognize it when it happens.  The great John Wesley (founder of Methodism) strove for years seeking a conversion experience.  He worked and worked to be as good a Christian as he could.  He believed but was still spiritually bereft when he left America to return to England in 1737.  It wasn’t until he attended a small Moravian service on Aldersgate Street in London in May 1738 that he, “… felt my heart strangely warmed … and an assurance was given me that he (Christ) had taken away my sins …” In that moment, he realized that he had been born again.  He then understood what the phrase truly meant, and he went on from there to become one of the great spiritual and theological leaders of the 18^th Century.

But for the majority of us, the change is not so sudden or even particularly dramatic.  For most of us the recognition that we have been born again is a more gradual realization.  We “grow” into our new spirits and the new lives that the new spirit brings.  Sometimes it happens to us and we don’t even know it.  And, sometimes we have to “talk the talk” before we can “walk the walk.”

Some advice.

I once took a course in public speaking.  One of the techniques they taught to help us overcome our fear of speaking to a crowd was to, “Act Enthusiastic, and you’ll be Enthusiastic.”  Or in more modern parlance, “Fake it until you make it.”

This advice is based on a tried and true principal of human behavior.  That is that we tend to become who or what we tell ourselves we are.  If we don’t feel that we are “lovable,” we tend to act in ways that make us, in fact, unlovable.  If we continually tell ourselves that we cannot do something, sooner or later, we’ll come to believe that.  And when we tell ourselves that some task is impossible for us, we eventually believe that and so do not accomplish that task.  Our perception of ourselves or our limitations can become, for us, our reality.

However, if we act as though we are not afraid, we are more likely to overcome our fear and to complete our task with confidence.  If we believe that we can be loved, we will tend to show more love to others and receive more love in return.  Again, perception can become reality, both in our lives and in our spirits.

So, if we begin to act like Christians, we will begin to think more like Christians.  And when we start to think more like Christians, we begin to become more Christian.  Our hearts and our spirits will start to ‘listen’ to ourselves, and we can begin the process of becoming truly Christian.

The signs.

One of the signs of our having had a genuine spiritual rebirth is when our focus begins to be less on ourselves and more on others.   When we start to think more about what we can do to help someone else than about what they can do to help us, we know that we’ve at least started on the path.

When we begin to stop valuing making more money or acquiring more material wealth for what it can do for us and our lifestyle and start rejoicing in more money and wealth because it allows us to give more help to others, we’ve started on the path.

And, when we begin think more about what God would have of us rather than of what God should or could do for us, we’ve started on the path.

“Hearing” what God is saying to us will become easier.  Discerning and following His will for us in our lives will become more automatic.  And our relationship with Him will become ever closer.

These changes may not come at once.  We may not recognize them for some time.  Someone else may notice the change(s) in us and comment on them before we realize that they have occurred.  But if we do as Jesus said and focus more on loving God and one another than loving ourselves, the changes will come.

Closing.

I’ve heard it said that salvation is a process.  That means that we are all “works in progress.”  Even if we genuinely feel that we have been born again, God has more work to do in us.  We are incomplete and will always need His grace to become so.

But, if we accept Jesus, truly repent of our sins, and do all in our power to grow closer to God every day, we’ll have done enough.  Jesus has already done the rest.  And, then, we can truly claim that we have been born again.

God’s Blessings on you All.

Richard

November 9, 2018