No 13

(Born Again)

“Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7).

Regeneration is a subject that lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to take heed that we really are “born again,” for there are many who say they are but are not. Make sure that the name of a Christian is not being born in a Christian land or being recognized as professing Christianity, unless there is something more added to the “being born again.” It is a matter so mysterious, that human words cannot describe it. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8. Nevertheless, it is a change that occurs in us and it is known and it is felt – known by works of holiness and felt by a gracious experience. This great work is supernatural; it is not an operation which a man performs for himself. A new principle is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the entire person. It is not a change of my name but a renewal of my nature so that I am not the person that I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus.

To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive; man can do the one, God alone can do the other. If you have then, been “born again,” your acknowledgment will be, “O Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, thou art my spiritual Parent; unless thy Spirit had breathed into me the breath of a new, holy, and spiritual life, I had been to this day ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’ My heavenly life is wholly derived from thee, to thee I ascribe it. ‘My life is hid with Christ in God.’ It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me.” May the Lord enable us to be well assured on this vital point, for to be unregenerate is to be unsaved, unpardoned, without God, and without hope. (Drawn from the works of C H Spurgeon).