Why You Must Be Born Again (Part 3)
The earthly ministry of Jesus only lasted about three and a half years, yet the impact of His life on the history of mankind has been far greater than that of anyone else who ever lived. Why did Jesus have such an influence? He was God come to Earth in the form of a human being.
One of the problems people have in becoming a genuine Christian is they don’t believe they can possibly be good enough. And they’re right! No one ever is. We are all sinners, born into the kingdom of the world. We can’t pile up good deeds and hope they will make us acceptable in God’s sight. That is not the way to gain favor with God. Our salvation is not based on our being good enough, but on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is why “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
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Why You Must Be Born Again (Part 2)
We all need to be freed from the spiritual kingdom of the world, which we were born into at birth. The Bible teaches there is only one way this can happen. As Jesus told Nicodemus, we must be born again spiritually. We must be convicted of sin and spiritually born again to enter the spiritual Kingdom of God.
How are we born again? The Word of God states that this spiritual rebirth takes place when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. “Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is Himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that He didn’t make. Eternal life is in Him, and this life gives light to all mankind. … But although He made the world, the world didn’t recognize Him when He came. Even in His own land and among His own people, the Jews, He was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive Him. But to all who received him, He gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust Him to save them. All those who believe this are reborn!—not a physical rebirth resulting from human passion or plan—but from the will of God” (John 1:1-4, 10-13, The Living Bible).
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Why You Must Be Born Again(Part 1)
The phrase “unless you are born again,” used by Jesus when speaking to Nicodemus, refers to a spiritual birth, not a physical one. Every baby is born with a physical body, but also as a spiritual being into a spiritual family, or kingdom. The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve’s disobedience brought about both physical and spiritual death to all of their descendants. This death can better be understood as separation from God. Therefore, every person is born into this world as members of the kingdom of the world and spiritually separated from God’s Kingdom. This is the spiritual condition everyone has inherited from Adam and Eve. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [our forefather Adam], and death through sin, and this way death [separation from God] came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
One of the strongest statements regarding this truth actually came from Jesus in His reply to Nicodemus. Jesus said, “What I am telling you so earnestly is this: Unless one is born of water [physical birth] and the Spirit [conceived by the Holy Spirit and reborn spiritually into the Kingdom of God], he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven; so don’t be surprised at My statement that you must be born again!” (John 3:5-7, The Living Bible).
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Those Strange Apocalyptic Writings
Turn with me in your Bible to John 21:25. It states, ‘Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.’ That is a powerful statement! Through John, God makes very clear the extent of Jesus’ works. If everything Jesus said and did was recorded, John says, the whole world would not have room to hold all of the books. According to this verse, only a small amount of what Jesus said and did was recorded. This should tell us that Jesus’ words and actions that God chose to include in the Bible must be extremely important.
It is common knowledge today, at least among Christians, that because of the many end-times biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled, we are living in the last days of the church age, near that time when Jesus returns.
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Introducing Bob Fraley’s Message: You Are Salt & Light
Bob Fraley
Hello, I am Bob Fraley. I would like to give you a brief background about myself and my message.
I have two primary interests that consume most of my time. First would be my commitment to be obedient to God’s will and purpose in my life. That has fallen into three major categories.
One would be my responsibility of doing what I can to help my wife, Barbara, of 52 years. She has been a wonderful helpmate, and still seems to get more done than most people, even though she is now handicapped with MS and not able to walk. She has a lot of wisdom, which I am thankful I can make use of.
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Christians Are ‘The Light Of The World’
Scriptures confirm this truth. ‘For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves’
(Colossians 1:13).’ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord’ (Ephesians 5:8). ‘But you are a chosen people … a people belonging to God … who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Peter 2:9).
One of the catchphrases of the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries was that ‘knowledge brings light’. Many replaced God’s knowledge with man’s reasoning, placing human insight above God’s revealed wisdom. Mankind does not realize that our knowledge has only increased our understanding of things—science, biology, commerce, pleasure, etc. This is why the world’s vast accumulation of knowledge has only brought us to the many predicaments we see around us. We do not know what to do with our knowledge. It does not give us wisdom. Jesus taught that Christians should be this light.
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You Are “The Salt Of The Earth”
God challenges His Church today to be salt and light. In Matthew 5:13-14 Jesus makes two penetrating statements about Christians: You are the salt of the earth and You are the light of the world. Jesus gave us our perfect mission statement in these two short sentences. Our Lord is saying that Christians are the only people in this world who can preserve the good (our function as salt) and have the understanding to help in those areas that matter the most (our function as light).
SALT
For Jesus to use the word salt to describe one of the key functions of a Christian is amazing. Only the wisdom of God could have known what we do today about salt. It is one of the most stable compounds on Earth. On its own, it will not lose its saltiness. Salt becomes ineffective only when it becomes contaminated. This occurs if it is mixed or diluted with some other material or chemical.
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