Kingdom Birth

Read: John 3:3-8

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3

IN WORD

If the Kingdom of God was simply a better government or a societal shift, anyone could enter it. All they would need is the right perspective or an adjusted lifestyle. And while the Kingdom of God certainly includes good government and other social systems—at least the part of the Kingdom that manifests through God’s people on earth does—it’s much more than that. It’s a quality of life that can’t be experienced by sin-saturated humanity. It requires more than a natural mind-set and human ingenuity. It requires a radically transformed heart and eyes that see eternal spiritual realities.

No one can have that kind of heart or see with that kind of eyes unless he or she is born of God’s Spirit. In order to think like Him, see like Him, and live like Him, we have to have His Spirit living and moving within us. We must function as citizens of another realm even while we are living in this one. We can’t do that by changing ourselves. We have to be born again with a new nature.

Many old-nature observers don’t see a different nature in Christians than they find in themselves. That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t mean that new nature doesn’t exist. It simply means many Christians haven’t fed the new nature very well, that we are drawing our strength and energy from our own reserves rather than from the Spirit of God. Life in the Kingdom comes from beyond ourselves.

IN DEED

Never assume the Kingdom of God is simply “heaven” or a there-and-then reality rather than a here-and-now experience. On the other hand, never treat it only as an alternate approach to life on earth that can be fully realized with better human institutions. We can’t solve humanity’s problems by imposing God’s laws or morality on everyone else. We can, however, fill this world with heaven’s resources according to the power that works within us (Ephesians 3:20). And that power works within us only when we’ve been birthed by the source of power Himself.

ADDITIONAL READING: Ephesians 3:20-21

I remember this, that everything looked new to me . . . the fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a new man in a new world.

BILLY BRAY