“You Must Be Born Again”

By Tammy Lacock

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.” (John 3:7, KJV)

“Jesus answered and said unto him [Nicodemus], Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3, KJV)

Warren prefaces this week’s podcast by asking, ‘Just where is our love affair with the Lord?’

God is personified Love. He is not prosperity. He is not health. He is not anything else but Love. All He wants is for us to love him back because He is Love.

In last week’s podcast, we learned our souls and spirits are distinct from each other (Hebrews 4:12 KJV). When we are saved, by just believing on Christ as our Savior, our spirits are made perfect by Christ’s Spirit being joined to our spirit, making us one spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17 KJV). This is where the birthing takes place, in our spirits, where we are born again, new creations in Christ. It is in our spirits where our old sin-nature—passed down by the curse of Adam by Satan—is replaced by Christ’s nature. Adam is no longer our father. We are freed from the curse. With Christ as our new life, we are now bona fide sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. We must be born again to enter God’s Kingdom. We are saved because God now sees Christ as our new life. As believers, our old lives died in Christ at the cross, and we arose with Christ as our new life. Paul states this clearly in Galatians 2:20 (KJV):

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”

However, it’s in our soul—where our minds, emotions, and free wills reside—that we are growing up in Christ, maturing in Him, still being made perfect in Him. Our love affair with Him grows and takes place here. Paul reiterates throughout his epistles that we must have a mind change if we are to understand this new knowledge. We must separate what takes place in our spirits (the birthing) and what is taking place in our souls (growing love affair with Christ) if we are to understand the things of God and to finally be who God created us to be. And until Christ as our new Life is revealed to us, our souls will go on living as if we’ve never been born again, never knowing who we really are. Although our sin, Satan, nature is no longer in us, do we even know there’s been a radical change? Do we even know Christ now lives in us?

When the new birthing takes place in our spirits, we have no feeling that it took place. It is not a human experience; it is a God experience. Unless we search and understand Paul’s epistles, we may never know what took place. When God placed His seed (the Incorruptible Seed of His Son) in our spirits, we were completed. But we must know this to live it. We are continually growing up in Him. We must have this mind change.

He that is in me is greater than anything against me (John 4:4). We are saved by this new birthing in our spirits. Having this mind change in our souls begins the love affair with Him. And this unique love affair is precisely where we begin to understand the boundless Love of God.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave Is only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:17 KJV)

As believers, our old lives died with Christ. As believers, we arose with Christ, joined to Him in Spirit, where we are born again into an everlasting new life in Him.

As the Apostle Paul reiterates over and over in his epistles, we must have a mind change if we are to understand our new birthing. And we must have a mind change if we are to have a true love affair in Him.