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Here is Jesus' explanation of what it means to be born again.
The very Nature and Substance of the Father, and wherefrom men cease to be the merely created beings, but become the souls of men born into the Divine reality of God.
Then the only way to the Celestial Kingdom being by the New Birth, and that birth being brought to men only by the inflowing and working of this Divine Love, and whether or not a man shall experience this birth depending in its initiative on the man himself, the question arises how or in what way can a man obtain this Divine Love and this New Birth and the Celestial Kingdom. And because the way is so easy and simple, it may be that men will doubt the truth of my explanation, and continue to believe and place all their hopes upon the orthodox doctrines of the vicarious atonement - the washing of the blood, my sufferings on the cross and bearing all the sins of the world, and my resurrection from the dead - doctrines as harmful to the salvation of mankind as they are without truth or foundation in fact or effect. The only way then is simply this: that men shall believe with all the sincerity of their minds and souls that this Great Love of the Father is waiting to be bestowed upon each and all of them, and that when they come to the Father in faith and earnest aspirations, this love will not be withholden from them. and in addition to this belief, pray with all the earnestness and longings of their souls that he open up their souls to the inflowing of this Love, and that then may come to them the Holy Spirit to bring this Love into their souls in such abundance that their souls may be transformed into the very Essence of the Father's Love.
Once this love transforms the soul, then and only then can one proclaim to be born again.
John 3:1 "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
A person is born again as soon as he/she accepts Christ into his/life, and such person will indeed see the kingdom of God. From that moment begins a road toward spiritual maturity, and you have confused 'born again' with 'spiritual maturity'.
According to your logic a person who is saved today, would not have eternal life if he died tomorrow, because he/she did not yet reach 'perfection', which in your terms is same as 'born again'.
Jesus said our good works are like "filthy rags" the literal translation is menstrual rags, in other words our sinful nature negates any 'good" that we may do. Good doesn't cut it.
Good works do not get you to heaven, however, when we do the good works, we are helping ourselves to establish a good way to live. Loving God does not get us to heaven either, however, Loving God also establishes a good way to live. What gets us to heaven, the Paradise of our Father, is Divine love.
if you want to keep believing that you are a worthless piece of crap that others want you to be instead of God's greatest creation, by all means do so. You are in no way capable of saying who is of God and who isn't. It's not your right to say. You are a beautiful child of God and no one should tell you otherwise. If I don't agree with you, then that's all it is. i don't go around demeening others because they don't agree with me. The only ones I see doing that are the ones who stick to a particular religious belief. You should be more open minded where others are concerned because that one person that you are demeening could be another Jesus. (Not me though) Remember, He was mocked and condemned because of His beliefs. You are now doing that to me. What if I were right and you only found out after your death. Do you think it will be that easy and just say sorry, I didn't know? no, you will pay to the last farthing even for a false belief. I have prepared myself for that. If I'm wrong, I have already accepted my fate. If I'm right, glory be to me. It really doesn't matter to me and as long as I live in Love, I will not have a harsh punishment.
As Jesus said to John Zebedee during the final admonitions before His death "Dedicate your life to teaching your brethren how to love one another, even as I have loved you.â€
John 3:1 "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
A person is born again as soon as he/she accepts Christ into his/life, and such person will indeed see the kingdom of God. From that moment begins a road toward spiritual maturity, and you have confused 'born again' with 'spiritual maturity'.
According to your logic a person who is saved today, would not have eternal life if he died tomorrow, because he/she did not yet reach 'perfection', which in your terms is same as 'born again'.
We have different beliefs.
Accepting Jesus does not give you a new heart. A "sinful" heart is not perfect therefore, not born again.
Did you feel the new heart and did you automatically start doing no sin whatsoever even the inclination and did all the sins you had done until that point get erased? It's not that easy. You have to clean the slate and become as your were before you incarnated. No sin on your soul.
Anyone who is not saved, can have eternal life even after they die. God is about progression. We just progress our souls in the spirit world. We don't ever automatically see God when we die.
Well that is a tough one to be honest. I know that as a Christian we should put the Father before all else but it still isnt easy to say I would be happy if I was hated. Its something that I feel I would have to pray to my Father about. Never thought about it in too much detail before but I do know that we will be and how blessed we are when people do say all kinds of bad things against us.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will be praying to the Father that, should the situation start to arise on a frequent basis, he can give me the strength to be righteous in his eyes.
Accepting Jesus does not give you a new heart. A "sinful" heart is not perfect therefore, not born again.
Did you feel the new heart and did you automatically start doing no sin whatsoever even the inclination and did all the sins you had done until that point get erased? It's not that easy. You have to clean the slate and become as your were before you incarnated. No sin on your soul.
No, it is not easy to be sinless. As a matter of fact it is so difficult that no one after Jesus has been able to achieve such state of living. Jesus was the only one.
I'm sure she did. I've read comments of people that say she was not a saint because she didn't help anyone. She wasn't here to help or change the environment. She was here to show love and mercy as God would show love and mercy.
I dunno.. my memories of MT don't involve her rejoicing in the hatred that others would have for her.. seems almost as if its a badge of honor for the USA evangelicals..
Evangelical: "People hate me.. I MUST BE DOING IT RIGHT! WHEEE!"
Well that is a tough one to be honest. I know that as a Christian we should put the Father before all else but it still isnt easy to say I would be happy if I was hated. Its something that I feel I would have to pray to my Father about. Never thought about it in too much detail before but I do know that we will be and how blessed we are when people do say all kinds of bad things against us.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will be praying to the Father that, should the situation start to arise on a frequent basis, he can give me the strength to be righteous in his eyes.
GOD BLESS
That's a very mature and humble answer. God bless you.
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