Bible doctrines or teachings
The term born again is prone to wild misuse. Its meaning is almost always clothed with mockery. Our Lord Jesus, seeing its future distortion by His enemies, spent eighteen long verses with Nicodemus in John chapter three in order that His teaching concerning man’s salvation through the second birth be made crystal clear.
Lukewarmness, however, remains the most eloquent testimony of our pulpits’ spiritual powerlessness! We need more Christ, not more verses, for He is the wisdom of God.
Saul, who later became Paul, the Apostle, had a heart filled with religious pride before his conversion. He thought of Judaism, the religion of the Jews, as God’s only faith system, which they practiced for thousands of years. There should be no other tenet than that which was given by God to Moses. This conviction has led him to persecute the followers of Christ. His religious pride heightened in toxicity when Saul consented to the death of the first Christian martyr named Stephen. (See Acts 7:58.)
A person who is born of the Spirit, therefore, relies upon Jesus for his eternal life and assurance by sincere faith in our Lord’s finished work on the cross at Calvary.
Life demands that everyone should follow its list of priorities, topped by food and marital stability. I heard someone say this typical family shibboleth: “College, job, family.” But Mary Kay’s philosophy of life was even superior: “God first, family second, career third.”
The Lord’s church needs Spirit-appointed, Spirit-filled, and “poured-out” leaders who are considered faithful and more interested in Christ than in “Greek.”