Wise Words from the Best Book

Memory Verse:

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

(John 3:3)

Granny Vee writes:   

In our last lesson, we learned how wonderfully God made you even when you were a baby growing inside your mother’s womb.    Then you were born.

But Yeshua (Jesus Christ) said, “You must be born again.”  (John 3:5)

Now what does that mean?  “How can this be?”  is the question the teacher Nicodemus respectfully asked Yeshua. 

BORN AGAIN

Yeshua explained being “born again”.  He said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6) 

People give birth to little people.  My daughter gave birth to a beautiful little baby girl.    But when we are “born again” the Holy Spirit gives us a new spirit!   God is a Spirit and He brings forth spirits!  

This God promised:  

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes [God’s Way]…”  (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

So why then do we need a new spirit?  If we get a new spirit, what happened to the old spirit?  

THE WIND

Firstly, what is a spirit?  The word for “spirit” is the same word for “breath” or “wind” in both the Greek and Hebrew languages, the languages of Scripture.  

We can’t see the wind but we CAN FEEL the wind.  Natural wind is a force that is very powerful.  The wind of hurricanes can blow down trees and even buildings.  But wind does much good for us.  It moves the clouds through the skies bringing rain to various places.   Wind can cool us in the summer heat.   Wind can even make electricity!  Have you seen the wind turbines on “wind farms” that provide electricity to cities to run televisions and refrigerators in our homes?  On a smaller scale, your own breath can blow on a pinwheel to make it turn.    

So wind is a force.  The spirit that God breathed into you is a life force that God breathed into you!

All people are born with a spirit.   But why do we need a new spirit?   That first spirit died.    It died the first time you sinned.   God told Adam and Eve that they would die “in the day” that they disobeyed God.    Sin cuts us off from the “life force” of the Spirit of God, and so where there is no life, there is death.  

A DARK PLACE

It is very, very dangerous to go into an old trashed refrigerator.  Sadly, some children have thought it a game to go into old fridges to hide but then they couldn’t  get out after they closed the door.  Before they could be found, they died.  Why did they die?  They were cut off from air and suffocated.   Our physical bodies MUST breathe in order to live.  So now there is a law that the doors must be taken off refrigerators before they are trashed so little children won’t lock themselves up in them and die.  

When we sin, it is like shutting ourselves up in a dark place apart from God’s Spirit, apart from our spiritual breath.  (Yes, God IS present everywhere in one sense, but  there is another part of God, His Glory, that withdraws from evil.  See 1 Samuel  4:21)  

Human spirits need the Holy Spirit in order to prosper and live just as our bodies need air.  Human spirits die when cut off from the Spirit of God through sin.  Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing!”   Bodies may live on for some years, but they do someday die as well. Sadly they will die separated forever from God.  UNLESS ONE IS BORN AGAIN before the human body dies!  

Death actually means ‘separation’.  Sin cuts us off, separates us from the Spirit of God refreshing our lives.  It’s as if we are locked up in a dark refrigerator and running out of air and suffocating.  But if we cry out for help to Him, God hears us.  He can find us in the darkest place.  He can open the door and the light and the air rush in!  He blows upon us.  He gives us a new spirit.  He fills us with His Spirit.   We are born again!   

When we are “born again”, we can see and even be in the Kingdom of God!   

The Kingdom of Heaven is “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”!  (Romans 14:17) 

HOW TO BE BORN AGAIN

If you are not sure you are “born again”, you can pray to God.  Ask God to forgive you your sins through Yeshua (Jesus Christ) who died to take your punishment on the cross.   But Yeshua rose up out of the dead!  The word of God says,

“If you confess [say, “It is true”] with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)

If you don’t believe yet, ask the LORD to show you the Truth about Him.   Read the Book of John in the Bible.  Trust the good LORD to bring you into all Truth.  He loves you more than you love yourself, more than you can imagine!  So pray to be “born again” by His Holy Spirit! 

SUGGESTED SONGS:  “The Pinwheel Song” on “HAPPITY BIRTHDAY”     Be sure to check out Granny Vee’s videos under“Fun Things”, too! This post & video have a further explanation about how Adam & Eve were separated from God.