Just few weeks ago, I had the chance to come across John 3 vs 3, "Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
In that statement, Jesus revealed the most important key to eternal life. He even made it extremely clear.. he said, "truly, truly"! Jesus used those words to place great emphasis on very important facts.
To start with.. In the context, I realized Pharisees were the most religious set of all Israelites, in fact they were teachers of the law. I then wondered within myself.. But Nicodemus was a Pharisee now, why did Jesus tell him all these? Okay, back to John 3:3, Jesus was telling Nicodemus, despite how religious (and probably moral) he was that unless a person is born again, he can not see the kingdom of God. Wow! Jesus meant business! Okay, now I thought, this seems quite interesting.. Jesus was 100% clear, There is no plan B, no shortcut at all. Jesus didn't say "might not", he said "CAN NOT"!! That's a statement of impossibility. Dang! Jesus was super serious. But why is that so you may ask. Well, you see.. every one born of a woman is a seed of Adam..and due to the fact that every human came from him, we all have a permanent mark of sin by default (due to the advent of sin in the beginning of creation). That simply means you don't need to do anything evil or not..being a seed of Adam already makes u a sinner. And you know, the bible affirms God can't stand sin.. that's why, if you read the old testament well, you'll discover God had to give a temporary solution for his people which was the sacrificing of animals to temporarily cleanse that mark of sin that they were born with. You know, its kinda funny to me though, the sacrifices always had expiry date. They were all temporary solutions to a permanent problem. God in his infinite love later gave his only son to be the permanent solution to the permanent problem of the world cause he wants everyone to reach his eternal kingdom. Jesus was sacrificed for all.. his blood was used for the permanent cleansing of the mark of sin from anyone who believes in him.. through him all are free to be saved permanently from sin. Isn't that incredible? Jesus gave his life for all.. accepting him gives one the opportunity to be qualified to reach that eternal kingdom. So, in short being born again doesn't only mean being moral, if it was, Jesus had no need to talk about it with a Pharisee. Being born again simply mean you've accepted Jesus into your life as your personal Lord and Savior and you are now carrying his identity and not Adam's.. that the old permanent mark of sin has been erased and you now have the mark of Christ, of salvation.
Okay, you're still not convinced yet, right? Okay, let's consider a perfect example for what I've been talking about then. Oh.. yeah. Cornelius!
The bible described him as being righteous and who was highly moral and feared God. But guess what? God still saw that mark of sin in him.. But then, out of his infinite love, God himself led Peter to him and his household to remove that mark of sin from their lives. In short, as righteous as Cornelius was, he was still seen as a sinner in God's eyes because he still had the mark of (sin) Adam in him.
Okay, let's put it this way then.. no matter how religious you are or how high your morals are, without being born anew in Jesus.. your righteousness is in vain! There is no substitute for the ticket to heaven! Anyone not born again in Jesus still has that mark of sin and God hates sin. Only Jesus can erase that mark. That was the only reason why he ever died; for us. If making the kingdom of heaven was just dependent on being holy and self righteous, Jesus wouldn't have needed to come to this world and die. His death wouldn't have been necessary.
"But, me I don't sin now..I don't do this.. I don't do that.." Those are just the moral side of sin dude! Sin has been imprinted on every human the day they were born. Do not be deceived, Jesus is the only ticket to heaven.. But guess what? the good news is that the ticket is actually FREE!! Yeah! Its totally free! Why not grab this opportunity now? Why not allow Jesus save you and cleanse you totally right now? He loves you. He died for you, to erase that permanent mark of sin. Why not accept him into your life? He wouldn't want you to miss his eternal kingdom. I'm sure you wouldn't want that either. Just surrender your totality to him & be ready to be born anew. It might be too late tomorrow. Think about it.
Bless you!
Ife Roland
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