Category Archives: born again

“Jesus Have It All”

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Today is a very special day for me. After many years of being held captive by anxiety and trying many things to get free, God heard my cry for freedom and set me free. After 6 years on anxiety meds, I no longer needed them. Two years ago on this date was my first day of freedom from taking both Prozac and Buspar.

God has worked a change in my life, and for those of you who know me, it may be a bit of a surprise for me to tell you this. Because I have always been active in church and made it no secret that I believed in Jesus. In fact, I have thought throughout my adult years that I was living my life surrendered to God. The truth is In some ways I was, but in many ways I was not.
‘Make no mistake, God wants all of us.

About 5 months prior to taking my last anxiety pill I was at a revival service at my church with Pastor Denbow speaking (October 2021). He was speaking about “syncretism”- trying to mix the gospel with the worlds ways. In that service I realized that I had been trying to mix secular humanist thought and practices, as well as the widely accepted practice of eastern meditation, with the Bible. That does not work! In my love for God, He does not want to compete with me having other “spiritual” lovers — my ways or the worlds. He wants all of me, all of my heart— entirely, totally, and completely given up to Him. This is Teachings that the Bible Study group WOW has helped me to come to understand better and better through the past few years. (God has used WOW tremendously in my life to help me walk in freedom)

At that revival 2 1/2 years ago, I went to the front and repented for the sin I had held in my heart, and told God He could have all of me. On a morning, shortly after that I went to my pill box and heard the Holy Spirit tell me “that is not your inheritance.” I quit one medicine instantly. The other one I weaned off and took my last pill almost 5 months later.

Two years later to this day, I am free! The change in me since that time has been huge. So much so that I have told my friends, “I feel like I have been born again…again.”

Friday night I was talking to my husband, his brother, and my sister in law about this change. I said it almost makes you think about getting baptized again. I didn’t think I needed to since I was baptized as a teenager.
Saturday morning I woke up with the desire to be baptized burning within my heart.

So tonight, I am going to be baptized. I want to publicly declare that I have been changed by Jesus and His power alone. I want to do whatever He tells me to do. Because He is life. And I do not want my way of doing things ever again. They have died. I am raised to new life.

Jesus have it all!

Everything We Need to Know Him Part 4 — The Holy Spirit

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”And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.“ Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV
”“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.“ John 14:25-26 NIV

The one who truly believes in God has embarked on a journey to know God. This should be the focus of our lives. God has given us everything we need to truly know Him because He desires to be known by us. One of the greatest evidences of His desire to be known is the presence Holy Spirit within a believer.

We are all aware that our blessed Savior Jesus came to us as a baby and lived among us. He is “God with us.” But after His resurrection we were not abandoned to be left as orphans here. The Holy Spirit came to be “God in us.”

He is the precious “seal” and “deposit” within our lives “guaranteeing our inheritance”. When we come to God in faith the Holy Spirit comes to reside within us. He is more than willing to fill us to overflowing as we are baptized with the Holy Spirit so that we can walk with His power and be a witness to all who are around us.

The Holy Spirit is our Teacher. As we read the Word, it is the Holy Spirit who makes it come alive within us. He gives us understanding and He brings change within us through the Word.

The Holy Spirit is our Advocate. He intercedes for us. He is our Comforter and our Helper. He is our dearest Friend.

The Apostle Paul prayed this prayer for the Corinthian believers:

”May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.“ 
2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV

Paul wanted them to know closeness and friendship with the Holy Spirit. Our desire can and should be the same. As we come to the Holy Spirit and asking Him to speak to us and to teach us, He will. The Holy Spirit has come so we can know God intimately.

Our loving God truly has provided all that we need to know Him.

The New Life is a Life of Knowing God!

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We can KNOW God! That statement seems to be a little out there if we only look at it through our human eyes, but it is so very true. In fact, to KNOW God is what we were made for, anything short of KNOWING Him will end in death and eternal separation, or hell.

What is KNOWING God? It is first hand experiential KNOWING. It is living a life of intimacy/ closeness to Him. This is the kind of KNOWING that Jesus spoke of:

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3 NIV

This KNOWING is the New Life. It is eternal life. It is the kind of life we all long for and desire. But it will not be realized within us unless we allow Jesus into our lives. If we keep Jesus at a distance and are content to just do good deeds or live a “good” life, or be a good person, we really don’t know Him.

Jesus warned us of us “trying to be a good person” on our own without really knowing Him.

“”Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matthew 7:21-23 NIV

What a sad outcome to a life! They never KNEW Jesus! The truth of the matter is what we do to make ourselves feel and look good are described as a bunch of “filthy rags” in comparison to a Holy sinless God. (Isaiah 64:6)

That is why if we want to experience the New Life that is eternal life, we must know God through a close and personal relationship. We must come to Him, believing in Jesus His Son, asking Him to forgive us for and cleanse us of our sinful lives. We must invite Him to come and live in us so we can KNOW Him. Then the New Life of knowing Him will grow. As we seek Him in His Word, He will change us to be what we needed to be all along. As we pray to Him, listen to Him, and OBEY Him, we will KNOW Him!

That KNOWING produces the promise in us New Life that is eternal. We will live connected to Him with no fear of eternal separation from Him or death in hell because we will KNOW our God and and His eternal life!

The New Life Grows in Me!

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Life always produces growth. Think of a seed buried in the ground. All appears dead until the seedling breaks through the ground. The plant with proper care and attention grows.
Jesus told a parable in the book of Matthew emphasizing this point.

“He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭13‬:‭31‬-‭32‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The New Life God gives us is like that small mustard seed. It is planted in our hearts and it grows. It’s growth spreads out to every nook and cranny of our lives. It’s influence is within every thought we think, every word we speak, every action we take. It’s growth inside of us should not stop, because the New Life is meant to become the entirety of our lives.
If we are not seeing the growth and the influence of the New Life in our lives, we need to examine our hearts. Because we are not meant to have our lives with a portion of it dedicated to God and a portion dedicated to ourselves. We are meant for God’s New Life to be the totality of our lives. Our old ways of living that were dedicated to ourselves and our ways must go in order to make room for the New Life growing in us. Just as every weed in our garden that surrounds our new living and tender plant that we are attending must be pulled up and thrown out.
We are to live with this realized fully in our lives: The New Life, Christ in us, is our life now!

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What is the New Life Given By God?

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There has been a lot said about having your own personal “come to Jesus” moment. What a wonderful moment that is! It is the special moment we realize that we cannot live rightly. It is the time we see that we are being destroyed by our sins. It is the instant we see we are dead spiritually in those sins.
That moment, when we see we need the gift of New Life, is when change in our hearts begins.
However, we may lack understanding of what that means. If we do that, we will never fully receive the gift we have been given, and our lives will not go forward but go back to where we came from. This is because when we are given New Life in Jesus, we are to live in this New Life! New Life means a new spiritual heart. New Life means new desires, new thoughts- centered on God’s Word, and new feelings the peace, joy, and love of God.
This is how we are to live and experience the New Life. If we are living short of this experience, we are living short of the best that God desires for us.
Jesus described this New Life by a term that is very familiar, but must be realized in our lives for us to have the New Life that is offered to us. This term is to be “Born again.”
In John 3 there is an account of a religious man who had a “come to Jesus” moment too. He came because He knew Jesus was from God,and He knew what Jesus did was amazing. But He did not “Know” Jesus at that point. This is not much different than us today when we come to Jesus. We know Jesus is good and He does amazing things, but we don’t “Know” Him intimately.
Jesus immediately told the man this:

“Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.””
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says “To be born, is to be produced or brought into life.”
We are all born physically into the life we are now living here in our flesh, but there is a New Life that “is produced or brought into our lives “ when we are Born Again. We are changed by this New Life in our manner of living and conduct. This is because God’s life- manner of living and conduct- is flowing in us! This “New Life” isn’t just a life we get in eternity but it is life we experience now! What a gift!
May we not only have our “come to Jesus moment,” but may we be changed by it as we receive this New Life that is Born in us! Because Jesus says to us what He said to Nicodemus long ago:

“You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

That is where the New Life Begins!