New birth changes things and people. This is ultra-important for those connected to kingdom work. We will be changed to keep changing. God calls it growing toward maturity. Change matures. To fight it is to remain as a child; childish.
Jesus responded to Nicodemus that one born again is like the wind; going one direction and then another. This is the epitome of one concept; change.
When this trait is prominently rebuked a couple of things happen. The status quo becomes the norm from which future truth is assumed. Plus, God's interaction becomes withered. I believe the Word calls it grieving the Spirit.
What this move of birth does for us is it thrusts us into actual faith. We are immediately dependent upon Something larger than our understanding. Our diagnostic skill fades as God has such superlative style which makes our status quo look so.....status quoish.
Regardless of age, we are to live brand new. We are born again to live from an entirely new scheme of things. We are not to take our old ways and make them nicer. We are to be pushed from the womb of the kingdom with a totally new experience....an Abundant Life experience.
The major factor in the new birth truth is change is coming and nothing will change that.
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The Spirit moves people out of what they were locked into. Out of slavery to sin, and into a new free will. That is Spirit. A free spirit, and a renewed spirit are part of being born again. Free to choose what is right.
Our physical body is not changed, but our spirit is renewed, and that's how we are freed to overcome. And where did that renewed spirit come from? Spirit gives birth to spirit. We have a new breath of life from our creator. There is new life. That is rebirth. Born again of the cleansing waters of forgiveness, and born again of the Spirit of God who can only indwell those who have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Freedom to choose to move in new directions is an enigma to most people. Ah, rebirth. We are free spirits, who must now deal with the old flesh in a new journey, along a path we could never have imagined without God.
We can't see the wind, but we can see the effects of the wind. We can't see Spirit; Spirit/spirit isn't even physical. But we can see the effects of Spirit on a reborn Christian.
I find it amazing that so often Christians rely on teachings, dogma and traditional answers to problems that have supposedly been settled for decades if not centuries. Yet, when I study the Word for myself and follow the leading of the Spirit for myself I am often surprised that what I have always been told and taught as truth simply is not tenable. Who said all the answers that have been handed down through generations are true? Just because they are old doesn't make them accurate. In our fellowship there is no room for questions about baptism, communion, musical instruments, woman's role, age of accountability, on and on goes the list, because those things were "settled" long ago. When we preclude the need to prove the truth for ourselves it is no longer the truth, it is hearsay. Study sometimes proves that what we have been taught is entirely accurate. That's great. Our conviction is established and we become powerful in our defense of the truth. However, truth, just because we've always done it that way is not truth at all but simply a matter of blindly stumbling along. I find that so many of my brethren will stop short of adamantly claiming salvation simply because they have no conviction, only hand-me-down religion to rely upon. To study and to come to know Jesus and the Father is to develop such a sense of serenity and calm when thinking about the future because I have my own walk, my own conviction, my own Savior.
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