Born again means to be spiritually reborn by committing your life to Jesus and entering into a personal relationship with him. Jesus said in John 3:3 that unless a person is “born again,” he won’t see the Kingdom of God. In other words, Jesus is saying that when a person accepts the gift of grace from God and believes in Jesus Christ, a very real change happens, brought about by the Holy Spirit – a second birth, if you will. In that respect, every earnest Christian is “born again” whether he or she ascribes to that label or not.
The New Testament is filled with the idea that something’s different in people who’ve committed their lives to Jesus. Paul says that a Christian is a “new creation,” meaning the old things of that person’s life in effect die, and all things become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). He adds in Ephesians 4:24 that the Christian “puts on the ‘new self,’ who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.”
Dealing with Hopeless Cases
A common response that many people have when they hear about God’s gift of grace is: “But you don’t know what I’ve done!” In other words, God may forgive some people, but the sin in that individual’s life is soooooooo bad that God can’t possibly forgive him or her.
If you read Chapter 1, you know that Christianity includes a number of beliefs that are contrary to natural train of thought. Well, add this one to that list, because one of the key teachings of Christianity is that no sin is ever too great, and no sinner is ever disqualified from God’s grace – even someone as evil as Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein. So long as people confess their sin and believe in Jesus, God forgives them. That may be offensive to one’s notion of fair play and the belief that what-comes-around-goes-around, but that’s what Christianity is all about.
An amazing truth of Christianity is the way that God treats even the worst of sinners. Consider the following three “hopeless cases” and their unique encounters with Jesus Christ.
Last gasps for a thief
The Romans crucified Jesus between two criminals on a hill outside of Jerusalem. The Gospel of Luke (23:39-43) says that one of the criminals started to taunt Jesus, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? If so, save yourself and us!” But the other criminal was angry at the taunter, responding that they were being punished justly for the crimes they committed, while Jesus was fully innocent. The second criminal then turned his head toward Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus looked back at him and responded with some amazing (the word that keeps popping up) words, “Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.”
The thief may not have said the words of the “sinner’s prayer” (see the sidebar, “A prayer of salvation”), but Jesus knew his heart. The thief acknowledged his sin and believed in Jesus Christ. Jesus then wiped out everything bad that the thief ever did before being nailed to that cross and welcomed him into heaven.
The thief proves that as long as you’ve got one more breath, you’re never too late, and your deeds are never too despicable for you to receive God’s grace.
Within a stone’s throw of judgment
A group of Jewish teachers brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and wanted to stone her, based on the laws of Moses in the Old Testament. When they questioned Jesus about this, his response startled everyone: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). One by one, the leaders slowly left as Jesus wiped away their grounds for punishment with his bold statement.
Jesus turned to the woman and said, “Who are your accusers now?” The woman responded, “No one, sir,” to which Jesus replied, “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”
This woman had received a death sentence from the what-comes-around-goes-around crowd. But Jesus forgave her and gave her a chance to turn from her sin-infested life into a life of belief in him.
The original “wretch like me”
John Newton was a captain of a slave ship in the 18th century and had a heart that was as wicked and cruel as you’d expect a slave trader to have. For many years, Newton rebelled against God and would have nothing to do with him. That is, until a violent storm occurred one night during a voyage. The storm was so bad that it seemed like certain death for all aboard. During the worst of the storm, he cried out for the Lord to have mercy on them. God rescued the ship that night, and Newton, who was certain he’d narrowly escaped death’s door, now saw his life in a different light.
Newton committed his life to Christ and began a slow process of changing his life of sin into a life fully dedicated to the Lord. After several years, he even felt called by God to become a minister and spent the remaining decades of his life preaching the good news he discovered on that slave ship years before. As a preacher, Newton often wrote hymns for weekly church services and prayer meetings. He penned hundreds of them, but one stands apart from the rest. You guessed it – “Amazing Grace”!
On first take, it’s perhaps natural to think that a traditional hymn like “Amazing Grace” must have been written by a goody-two-shoes whose worst offense was fighting with his kid sister. But when you grasp that someone as despicable and slimy as a slave trader wrote the song, you realize that God’s gift of grace does indeed live up to that “amazing” label.
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