Pentecost 81 Why We Need to be Born Again

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Pentecost 81 Why We Need to be Born Again

“Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you (Gal.5:1 The Message).”

Let’s get down to it. What drives the secular world? Behind the scenes, underneath the glitter, the gloss and the glamor of what we can see, lies a sea of dark spiritual activity called evil, the devil’s extension of himself. To name the contents of evil is to identify what fuels the engine of an existence without God.

We can list some: guilt, fear, pride, strongholds, compromise, hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, lust, envy, jealousy, idolatry, adultery, witchcraft, dissension, factionalism, denominationalism, addictions, greed, manipulation, worry, deceit, self-deceit, anger, false humility, stubbornness, self-righteousness, legalism, confusion, gluttony, obesity, hoarding, conceit, homosexuality, bestiality, cursing, shame, obscene language, covetousness, resentment, slander, false witness, murder, blame, drunkenness, selfish ambition, divination, sorcery, disrespect, laziness, sloth, lawlessness, quarrelsome, vindictive, vengeful, begrudging, judgmental, thievery, exploitive, hypocritical, violent, bad tempered, rebelliousness, inhospitable, gossipy, malicious, abusive, ungrateful, persecution, taunting, tempting, discouraging, demeaning, debasing, undisciplined, contrary, self-pity, plus others and the nuances of each.

What do all these have in common?

They separate us from God, alienate us from others and drive us into a lonely cave of self-justification and rationalization. They enslave our minds, our hearts and our souls. They rob us of our freedom. The make us distrustful, suspicious and constantly wary. They keep sending a single message, ‘It’s all about me.’ We find ourselves cornered in the alley of ‘no-way-out.’ They are the paranoid equipment of the devil’s playground, the merry-go-round, the sandbox, the swings, the monkey bars and the see-saws of his game plan to isolate each soul from God. They are like life sentences that place us in eternal solitary confinement.

At any moment they appear in one form or another to keep us anxious and self-consumed. They limit our thought, imagination and creativity. They are the negative spiritual forces that come through the backdoor of our consciousness and inhibit our minds, clutter our hearts and tempt our souls. They are the products of that awful satanic disease called sin. When God said in Gen.2:18 “It is not good for the man to be alone…” He let it be known that aloneness was the primary condition the devil would exploit to separate us from Himself, from others and harden our hearts within. Pride, fear, remorse and regret would be our only companions in the darkness of our self-contemplation.

The really good news, the great proclamation, the incredible realization of God’s grace and love rescuing us, came in the person of Jesus who took upon Him our aloneness. He showed that by living that alone life by faith in His Father, His Father’s Word and the presence of the Holy Spirit in His heart, He would free us from the forces that enslave us and open our minds to again be creative, expansive and see the broad horizons of spiritually thinking, spiritually sharing and spiritually relating. In Jesus we leave the self-confinement of fear and pride to the open and free range of the Scripture. There we can graze in the always-fresh fields of new insight where thought expands and the heart welcomes the fresh air of spiritual pondering. There is a never-ending availability of new ways to think not only about single words but whole phrases and themes that open us to the breathe the oxygen of truth to clear the smog of sin from our spiritual lungs.

“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence? (Gal.5:16-17 The Message)”