Born Again AGAIN

Do you need to be born again again?

Let me say that sanctification is a process. Those who are sanctified are being sanctified. In the process of growing up in Christ we can reach a plateau and after walking on that plateau for some time begin to sense a need to go up higher. Unwittingly, we can begin expending effort to get to a new elevation, instead of simply trusting Christ. We can become frustrated, knowing that there is a deeper experience, but not able to achieve it, we get discouraged.

I have been in that place more than once. I am sad and discouraged with myself because I thought I would be further along than this. I feel like I haven'
t made progress in my walk. My disappointment with myself I begin to project to God.

Do you know that God has never been disappointed with me. Not that I have always been jack sprat with His program, no. But most of the time, if I am discouraged, I have failed to live up to expectations of myself or other people.

So God says, start over. Go back to square one. Kind of like a monopoly game, you pick up a card that says go back to GO.

That is where I get undressed and am naked before God. I take a shower once again in the blood of Christ and He hands me a clean towel and fresh garment. I think, "I may not be this or that, I may not have saved many souls, or built much, or earned any feathers in my cap, really I have just a boogered up life, but I know how to do this!"

Maybe that's what Paul was speaking of when He says "I do not count myself to arrived or really accomplished anything but THIS: Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I PRESS..."

So, Christian, when you are hearing the Spirit of God say, "Be born again," there is no shame in that. It is simply a do over point. It is like a "new life" in the video game of life. It is a way to regain your joy when you feel like a failure.

Not a bad thing to admit that I have failed. Not a bad thing to recognize the inability of the flesh to please God. Not a bad thing to cast myself once again at the feet of a merciful God and then look up to see that I am in His arms.

There is a parable in Luke 18 about two men who went up to prayer. One felt pretty good about his accomplishments, the other felt like he had messed up his whole life. He wouldn't even go in, but stood outside beating his chest, crying to Mercy. There wasn't a third guy there. So which one are you? Which one can you identify with?