Day 9: Receiving Jesus

In John 3, Jesus is telling Nicodemus about the importance of being born again. Unless a person has this experience, unless he has been born from the Spirit, he cannot see and enter the kingdom of God.

I believe the conversation with Nicodemus is recorded for a special reason. Because if there was anything else that would do instead of the new birth, Nicodemus had it all. He was a religious man, he was an educated man, he had a high social position, and he belonged to a race (the Jewish race) which God had set apart for special purposes. But notice this, neither religion nor education nor social position, nor racial superiority, are any substitute for the new birth.

So far, we have seen two things: the necessity of being born again and the nature of what happens. There remains one more very important question. How can a person be born again? That is what I'm going to tell you just now. In John's Gospel, chapter 1, verse 11, John says this about Jesus:

"He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him." (NASB)

Jesus came as a Jew to the Jewish people and, as a nation (not as individuals, but as a nation collectively), they rejected Him who was their Messiah. But thank God there's a "but" after that (in verses 12 and 13):

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." (NASB)

What is the key transaction that leads to being born of God, which is the same as being born again or born anew? What is the one thing you have to do to be born again? You have to receive Jesus as your personal Saviour, confess Him as your Lord. When you do that, He gives you the right, the authority to become a child of God. You do it through faith, through believing in His name. Not through any religious good works or any claim you may have of your own righteousness, but simply through believing in His name. And the result is you are born of God.