My First Born Again

By Scott Wetzel

“...Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again”-John 3:2 (NIV)

Three days ago my life changed forever.  I’m still not sure how it changed or what’s about to happen, but I know it changed.  My wife and I had our first child, a screamingly beautiful little girl.  The father’s role in the birthing process is quite different than years past, according to my understanding.  Fifty years ago, a father would smoke packs of cigarettes while pacing back and forth waiting to hear whether it was a boy or a girl.  Thirty years ago, the dad would hold his wife’s hand while trying to watch what’s going on in a mirror, making it difficult to see any of the details.  In this day and age, they ask the father to help out (I’m sure it’s due to rising healthcare costs) by “holding a leg”.  This not only made me feel useful, but also gave me a bird’s eye view of all the action.  Watching the birth of your first child is amazingly beautiful.  It’s also kind of gross.  A gorgeous little creature comes out, but so do some of the most disgusting things you’ve ever seen in your entire life. 

When Jesus said, “born again”, I’ve always taken the position that he meant, and ONLY meant, that we become new creations, pure and holy.  That’s true, of course.  However, this experience has widened my thinking.  Truly becoming a follower of Jesus is much more than saying the “Sinner’s Prayer” and getting your fire insurance.  A whole lot of times we gloss over what it means to surrender all that we have and repent of our sins to our Creator.  We don’t tell people what it means to repent, and we end up with a church of lukewarm Christians.  To repent means that we get rid of the bad stuff in our lives...

which means we have to acknowledge the bad stuff...

which means we end up bringing up some gross things...

which means repenting in and of itself is pretty messy...

We can’t be a new creation with some of the old junk sticking around inside of us.  If we allow that to stay during our rebirth, it will rot.  Then we’ll be sick, and dirty, and without Christ.  We cannot gloss this point over.  It doesn’t serve any purpose, unless our purpose is to plant relationship destroying seeds. In order to grow as a new creation in Jesus, we have to release what kept us going before and embrace what keeps us going for eternity.  Only Jesus can take from us the things we don’t want to admit to and make us brand new.  Brand new like my little baby.