WHY A NEW BIRTH?

Why You Need To Be Born Again:

*Jesus said so:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." (John 3:1-3, NIV)

*It is the required step to see and enter the kingdom of God, so it is both a step to our salvation, and it is an act of faith.

"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." (Titus 3:5, NIV)
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)

*Naturally we have a sinful nature.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it." (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV)
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14, NIV)
We inherited our sinful nature from Adam and Eve when they fell from grace in the Garden of Eden. Since then, the natural desire of man is to please himself and satisfy his petty cravings by all means, resulting in sin.
"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." (Genesis 6:5, NIV).

With this sinful nature, we cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God. God is holy, so sin cannot get near Him. Because the greatest effort by the best of men is not good enough, God Himself had to devise a way by which we can reach Him and be saved, and that is by being born again.
Being born again is the key that opens the door to all of God's provisions for mankind. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us that he came that we might have life in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). The new birth is what gives us access to this abundant life. There is no other way to it.

A Sinful Nature
We inherited a sinful nature from Adam and Eve, the first man and woman created by God. Before they sinned, they were God's good friends and companions. In the cool of the day, God used to come down to interact with them and see to it that all was going well with them.
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden." (Genesis 3:8, NIV).
Truly, the young couple had it good in the Garden of Eden until the old serpent (Satan) came and deceived them. They sided with Satan and disobeyed their creator, provider, and best friend (God). They fell out of fellowship with God and lost their dwelling place (the Garden of Eden). Since then, the natural desire of man has changed to that of pleasing himself and satisfying his fleshly, and worldly cravings. The best of men is sinful and selfish. He thinks of himself above anything else. He enthrones himself and wants every other person to bow to and serve him. This is the reason if two close friends or brothers (even identical twins) were asked to share ten items between them, the initial thought of each of them would be: "How do I get the bigger or better share of the ten itemms? How can I get six or seven and leave my partner with four or three?" None would think of taking four and allowing the other have six. One of them might even go to the extreme of wanting eight or nine, leaving the other with two or one. Knowing that the other fellow will resist this, he might devise a means of getting rid of the other person to end up with all the ten items to himself. Such is the nature of man.
This brings to mind the story of three poor but close friends. Not only were they poor, they were lazy and homeless, so they resorted to begging as a way of life. They would wander from place to place, begging for food and money. As they went about their normal business one day, they found a big bag on the street in an isolated part of town. They picked it up and opened it. To their amazement, the bag was stuffed with $100 bills. They took it and ran as fast as they could to a more secluded place. There, they sat down and counted the money, discovering that it was $50,000. They could not believe their eyes. Was it a dream or what? They jumped, skipped, ran, and rolled on the floor in excitement until they were exhausted. Then, they sat down to talk about what each of them was going to do with their share of the money; what a happy day!
Soon, it dawned on them that they had not eaten all day. Without much ado, they chose one of them to go to a fine restaurant in town to purchase food and drinks for all of them--the other two remained behind to watch over the money. With a hundred dollar bill in his pocket, the one joyfully left to but the food. On his way, he thought about taking the lion's share of the money. If he could have $20,000 to himself, his friends should be satisfied with $15,000 a piece, he thought. What of taking $30,000? His friends should be satisfied to have $10,000 each; after all, they did not work for the money. But they will not agree, they will resist, so I must do something, he concluded.
At the restaurant, instead of buying food for the three of them and bringing it back to his friends, he treated himself to the most delicious meal of his life. Upon finishing, he bought food for his two friends, and headed back to where they were waiting. On his way back, he stopped at a chemical store, bought some poisonous powder, and mixed it with his friends' food. This will settle it, he thought. They will eat this and die, and all the money will be mine.
Meanwhile, the two friends watching over the money had hatched a plan as well. The two of them had agreed that they deserved a larger share than the one who went to buy food. They thought it would be best for them to have the money to themselves: they would have almost $25,000 each. It sounded good to them, so they agreed to strangle their friend to death as soon as he came back with the food.
The food man returned a few minutes after the plan was hatched. Before he could say "Jack," his friends pounced on him and strangled him to death as planned. They dumped his body into a ditch and came back to eat food bought by the deceased, not knowing it had been poisoned. Hardly had they finished eating before the poison took its toll and both died, clinging to the bag of money. The police arrived later to take the three bodies and the bag of money away. The three friends, out of selfishness and greed destroyed one another and lost everything. None of them ended up with any part of the money. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Above is an excerpt from my book, "A New Birth - The Key To All of God's Provisions." It is available on http://www.thegoodnewsbearers.org/, http://www.interestingwriting.com/, http://www.signedbytheauthor.com/, Amazon.com, Barnes & noble Booksellers, and other leading bookstores. Get a copy for yourself and your loved ones. You'll be glad you did!

Ade Esan - author.

He Still Loves You

HE STILL LOVES YOU

Do you think that you are a bad person and that God is angry with you? Ever felt that you are too bad to be loved and forgiven by God? I have news for you, and that is, God's love is greater than all your sins. Your sins, no matter how great, cannot quench His love for you! 'But the list of my sins is very long,' you may say. Perhaps you are even trying to count them in your mind right now: alcohol and drug abuse, stealing, cheating, lying, adultery, murder, fornication, assault, homosexuality... the list may seem endless. Surely you have cause to feel dirty, rotten and unloved by God, but the truth is that no matter how bad you think you are, GOD STILL LOVES YOU. He is able and willing to forgive, save and cleanse you.

The Bible says:... God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4 NIV.) And the truth is that God loves you unconditionally, and knowing this will set you free. Let me tell you this: many of the people God used and we read about in the Bible were not perfect. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sinned at one time or another. David, the man after God's heart (1 Samuel 13:14.), committed adultery and plotted the death of his mistress's husband to cover up his sin. Peter denied ever knowing Christ or having anything to do with Him. A few days later he preached the gospel and three thousand souls were saved. Paul persecuted those who were Christians before him, having them stoned and imprisoned. Yet he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and started many churches. Even today, the men and women of God that we see, hear about and watch on the TV are also not perfect; they are just saved by grace like all of us, and forgiven by God.

I was captivated by the appearance of a guest preacher who came to my church recently. I knew he was a preacher before anybody told me. He looked so gentle and innocent in his well- tailored three-piece suit. I even assumed he was a preacher's son, raised in church and in a good Christian home.

I was proved wrong when he declared in his preaching that he was from a dysfunctional family, and that his father hated church.His father was an alcoholic, a constant abuser of his wife and had no time for his children. This preacher grew up following his father's footsteps. He became a terror at school and in the neighborhood. He joined an outlaw bikers' club where he committed many atrocities. Alcohol and drug abuse, bullying and beating up innocent people and hanging out with gangs were his favorite daily activities. The police were always after him.Once, in a fit of rage, he beat and dragged his own mother and stepfather, and hit his pregnant girlfriend so hard that she fainted. Anywhere he went, his presence caused people to shiver and tremble. A friend of his who knew him well and wrote about his past life said 'his conscience was numbed' and that 'drugs had made a scrambled mess of his brain'. Such was this man's life - a total mess.

One day someone gave him a gospel tract. He took it reluctantly, read it and threw it away. For many days he could not get his mind off what he read from the tract. Finally, he knelt down in desperation, and called upon God to forgive and save him from his messy life. God answered and turned his life around. As you know, this man is now a respectable preacher, a writer and the founder of a home for the homeless and drug abusers. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old (way of life) has gone, the new (way of life) has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17.)

After listening to this man's story, I concluded that God's love to man is great. If He could save this man and turn his life totally around for good, nobody is too bad for Him to love, reach out to and save. His hands are not short. He is able and willing to save whoever calls upon Him. He can turn any life around, heal any hurt and wound, and make something beautiful of a messy life.