What Must I Do to be Born Again?

         Americans, for the most part, are a "can do" people.  If something needs to be done,
     we like to be able to do it ourselves, if possible.  Finishing a task or project gives us
     a feeling of accomplishment.

         Maybe that's why sometimes we want to help God perform spiritual deeds that only
     He can do; for instance, the new birth. 


             "DO SOMETHING"

          An article in a Christian publication stated correctly, that we must be born again to
     see the kingdom of heaven; but then the writer wrote, "you can be born again and
     experience new life in Christ.  Here's how:  1. Admit you're a sinner (Rom 3:23).
     2. Repent of your sins (Acts 3:19)."

         Unfortunately, while explaining what repentance means, there was a typographical
     error and the article ended in mid sentence, but the clear implication was that if a person
     does A, B, and C etc. , then he can be born again.  In other words he should DO SOMETHING
     to receive the new birth (also known as being born again, born of God, born from above,
     and regeneration).


           REGENERATION - A WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

         Billy Graham wrote a book years ago entitled "How to be Born Again," suggesting that
     there is something that a person does to receive the new birth.

          However, the Bible plainly tells us that the new birth is totally a work of God,
     not something we do ourselves.  Jesus explained in John 3:7-8, that the new birth is a
     mystery accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

                                            (Jesus said),

                                                    "Flesh gives birth to flesh,
                                                     but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

                                                     You should not be surprised at my saying,
                                                      'You must be born again.'

                                                      The wind blows wherever it pleases.
                                                      You hear its sound, but you cannot tell
                                                      where it  comes from or where it is going.

                                                      So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."


          "The Holy Spirit is sovereign.  He works as he pleases in his renewal of the
     human heart."
                                NIV Commentary


               THE NEW BIRTH PRODUCES AND PRECEDES FAITH


          From The World-Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips:

                         "There is supernatural mystery to it (the new birth) not reducible to a
     tidy formula.

                         Though I realize this knocks heads with a lot of evangelicals' notions
     (including the view I myself cherished for many years), I do not know any other
     honest way of handling John 1:12-13:

                                               'But to all who receive him, who believed in
                                               his name, he gave the right to become children
                                               of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the
                                               will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'

                          "There we have the certain fact that all who are born again believe in
     Jesus Christ, but their new birth is expressly traced -- not to anything they had in-
     herited from their parents, nor to any exercise of their own will or any decision they
     made, nor to any decision any other mortal had made, but to the kingly grace and work
     of God.  They believed savingly in Jesus because God had given them new birth before
     their embrace of Christ.  They received Christ because God had regenerated them.

                          Phillips continues:

                          "Read 1 John 5:1 very closely:

                                                 'Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
                                                  has been born of God.'

                           Did you see it?  Everyone who in the present believes, has in the past
    been regenerated by God.  Present faith indicates past regeneration.  Faith does not
    produce regeneration to John's mind.  Regeneration produces faith.

                            Our Lord's half-brother James sounded the same note when he wrote,

     'Of his  own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind
     of firstfruits of his creatures' (James 1:18).

                             God gave us new life as an exercise of His will, not in response to an
     exercise of our wills ... our faith [is] prompted by God's initiative.  God moves first,
     then we move in response.

                             
                              Add Peter for a third witness:

                                'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
                                 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be
                                 born again to a living hope through the resurrection of
                                 Jesus Christ from the dead.'
                                                            1 Peter 1:3

                               It was the Father who caused  us to be born again according to His
     own mercy, rather than in response to a request from us - a request that never would
     nor could have come from spiritually dead lips (the reason we need the new birth,
     because we are dead in our sins and unable to do God's will) and a heart that hates
     God and His will (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 5:10).

                               The man does not do it to himself; he doesn't born-again himself.
     He is the recipient of the life-giving action.  And so Jesus later says,

                                          'You do not believe because you are not
                                           part of my flock.'
                                                                    John 10:26

                                Being in His flock precedes belief, but is in inseparable from it.


               AN EXAMPLE

                                I wonder whether the analogy of our great grampa's birth might be
     helpful.  When did Adam become physically alive?  When he drew his first breath.
     But what was that breath?

                                   [When] 'the LORD  God ... breathed into his nostrils the breath
     of life, and the man became a living creature' (Gen. 2:7).  So Adam was alive when he
     drew his first breath ... but that very breath was God, breathing 'into his nostrils the
     breath of life.'  Adam began doing what made him alive, when God made him alive.

                                And so do we, in the spiritual realm.  We are alive through faith.
     But our very exercise of faith is a grace-gift from God, breathed into us through
     regeneration."


               HOW GOD GIVES US THE NEW BIRTH

                                So how are we born again?  Phillips continues:

                               "By a miraculous work of grace, God the Father takes pity
     on our dead, lost, God-hating selves.  He breathes His life into us, bringing
     sight to blind eyes, life to dead spirits, and the submission of repentant faith
     to hard, rebellious hearts.
                                He causes us to be born again, and as surely as a newborn
     babe breaks out in a cry, so our newborn hearts embrace Jesus as Lord, and His
     gospel as our hope. 
                               In Christ we receive new life (and the new birth automatically
     leads to the salvation of the sinner).

                              
                               And so, because of Him (and his dying for us), we are declared
     perfectly righteous the moment we embrace the Lord Jesus Christ in repentant
     faith, accepting Him and all He says as true, and relying on Him alone for our
     salvation."


                                                      ****************

                      I haven't been born again because I've repented and believed in Jesus,
     but I've repented and believed in Jesus because I've been born again.
         

                      What must I do to be born again?

                      There is absolutely nothing I can do to be born again.

                      The new birth is totally the work of the Holy Spirit!