Am I truly born again

There is a dangerous trend these days for Christians to mingle the ways of the world with what was known in Jesus’ times as The Way. Straying from our biblical roots, in other words. When Jesus started His ministry on earth, He did not fit into the mould of any existing religious party of the day – not of the Pharisees, who attached endless human-made laws onto the Word of God that were passed on to subsequent generations; nor of the Sadducees who headed the other way by denying whole segments of Scripture, e.g. the existence of spirits, angels, the soul, the afterlife, and the resurrection.

On the one hand, contemporary Christianity has become guilty of the error of the Pharisees in the sense that it has added countless humanly devised traditions to our way of worship, smothering the active working of the Holy Spirit in our worship services. On the other hand, it has fallen prey to the tradition of the Sadducees, where copious amounts of New Testament practices have simply been removed. The first century church was a living breathing organism, where every member functioned with the divine life that dwelt in them through Holy Spirit, representing Jesus Christ Himself. Their practices were solidly grounded in the teachings found in the New Testament, where we find that the church held Spirit-led meetings where member participation was encouraged; and was led by non-hierarchical leadership – Jesus was the fully functioning head of His church.

Where did we as modern church go wrong? In my opinion, one of the root causes of our derailment from The Way is the lack of transformation among God’s people. Transformation implies much more than mere change; it is a complete or major change according to the dictionary. It cannot be window dressing only, it involves a radical change of heart, mind, and life choices. The moment the newborn Christian becomes aware of sin in his/her lifestyle, he/she will start procedures to break with that sin. Period. No procrastination, no compromise. Our verse quoted above states that they cannot wilfully keep on sinning, because they are now children of God – truly born again. If they keep choosing to repeat a sin once becoming aware of it, not sincerely repenting for their relapse every time they give in to it but actually telling God that He does not have dominion over that area of their lives – we can ask the question – are they born again? (Our definition of sin is found in the Word of God, not based on man-made traditions or people’s opinions.) Holy Spirit is faithful to point sin out to us by convicting us of it, reminding us that sin harms us, not condemning us and handing out punishment.

Points to ponder:  Examine your lifestyle choices – are you wilfully choosing to sin? Do you have the attitude of “Oh well, I was born this way….”  or “My grandfather did this, so did my father, we cannot help it, it is in our family”, or any self-justification whatever? Be transformed (Rom 12:2) in your mind. Let the gentle Holy Spirit show you what needs to change in you, and then act upon it!