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tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me both of those terms have to be connected in order for it to mean anything...
if so, if a person doesn't have "believing" in his heart, then "born again" doesn't really occur, does it?
for example, one guy said he became born again because he thought it would help him to get women and another said he did it only because his parents wanted/expected him to... & neither put themselves or their lives on a Christlike path afterward...
Putting pants on a little dog you've trained to walk on its hind legs doesn't make it a little boy. People use all sorts of words that they think make them special. Commitment of your will to God may have some importance, as proper teachings concerning the things contained in Scripture; but, none of it compares with becoming conscious of the change from God becoming manifestly present in you. You do not procreate, that is, people do not give birth to another human, a child by being disciplined, neither by being indoctrinated or expending great thought or effort. It is an outcome of intimate union. It is a birth. Just as we are born into the world and experiencing it as humans do because we have human parents, so it is with entrance into the kingdom of God. Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I am saying to you, If anyone should not be begotten anew, he can not perceive the kingdom of God." (John 3:3, CLT) When you are born of God you enter the realm which is God where God reigns, and you can perceive God and by the means of God perceive everything with your new senses.
There are various terms used to refer to what is called being "born again," or, "born from above." Some of these are spiritual regeneration, conversion or conversion experience, some speak of it as getting "saved," new birth and so on. While this happened to me when I was 19 years old, I found that deciding to follow Jesus as His disciple regardless of what happened to me, getting up if I fall down, never turning back, this was very important. I may experience something today then something else tomorrow. He started with me and I wanted to find out what could happen for someone who kept pursuing God. It hasn't been easy.
What it took me a long time to clarify is that the words used to describe "it" above are centered on self and its experience. The reality is that God became real to me. It's not so much about your change, rather the focus is on the manifestation of God to you. Our right to partake of the Divine nature, our "salvation" is based not on what God does in us, but on what God has done in Christ Jesus. That death, resurrection, ascension and sending forth of Himself into us as Spririt can never be undone. That death in us is to leave Adam and the new life is to enter Christ. Whatever you can leave or take up to keep experiencing the Holy Spirit must be what you determine to do. God is sinless. When His life is the determining factor in you personality you won't sin, even if the flesh's lusts are painful to not fulfill. People who do not have the Holy Spirit do not understand. They have other values.
As you mature to be more like everything that Jesus is and does because of increasing availability to Him, you will find many who have some experience with God do not have much change to be according to God's will and nature in their consciousness. It's one thing to be rejected by worldly carnal people still operating according to the spirit that works in the sons of stubbornness; but, to be opposed, rejected and despised by people who to some degree love God is very difficult. One of the Bible's prophets said Jesus was wounded in the house of His friends. Religious tradition for what to think and do replacing the Word of God about which they are ignorant is the primary cause. It largely comes about because people without the experience keep using the words from someone else's experience as their standard after they are gone. This is one of many reasons to read the Bible for yourself.
Last edited by JamesMRohde; 07-04-2009 at 09:04 PM..
You can believe without being born again. Even the devil believes there is a God.
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and another said he did it only because his parents wanted/expected him to... & neither put themselves or their lives on a Christlike path afterward... 
