Taking the risk of you not being able to get Eminem’s voice out of your head, I know
Except for one guy we all got here the same way. We all have mothers and fathers. We are their children. We don’t get to pick them and despite some small advances in science they largely don’t get to pick us. We’re sort of stuck with each other. It’s not always a comfortable or even smooth fit but the relationship is what it is. Thankfully, or not, it’s not that way with God.
John says that if we believe and if we accept Jesus we can become a child of God. So, we get to choose. God gave us free will and it gets us into a bunch of trouble sometimes but it also allows us to decide if we want to be made new with him as our Father. Check out how he wrote it: “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.” (John 1: 12-13)
On the one hand, being granted the right to be reborn through God is empowering. The scripture says this is our right; some might call it a birthright. The promise of this new birth is contingent on our belief and acceptance of God’s Son Jesus but once we have those things, rebirth is ours. This is a far cry from how we came into this world as the result of passion or plan or some combination of the two. In that circumstance our will had nothing to do with any of it. On the other hand (with apologies to all you mothers out there) that first birth is sort of the easy one.
Just because we’re granted the right to be reborn as God’s child doesn’t mean we have the will or the strength or the courage or even the wisdom to do so. Remember that free will thing? This would be where it can and often does trip us up. We must make the choice. We can’t be reborn this way without being involved in the process, something we had no part in during our initial birth. This rebirth isn’t a one-time deal either. No one gets born twice physically however due to our own flaws or weakness or a host of other reasons, we can lose our belief, turn our back and stop accepting Jesus as our savior. Thankfully once this happens we do not die in the same way we die physically.
Through confession and repentance we can accept Jesus and believe anew. We have but one physical life to live here but through the grace of God we can be reborn again spiritually. I’d call that good news, really good news.
Can you imagine how different things would be if we only had one shot at being reborn as a child of God? How thankful does that make you for God’s grace? There’s really no bigger deal than grace when you get down to it.
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