Getting “Born Again” (Part 1) - Earnest Expedition™

The last blog post discussed Jesus’s clear teaching that everyone (no matter how seemingly qualified or not) must become born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God. No exceptions.¹ We ended the last blog post with a logical question from the first-person perspective: “How do I become born again?” The answer to this question is multifaceted. Because of the way the question is worded, the answer can be summarized into five steps. Interestingly, the first three steps are not initiated by, performed by, or accomplished by you. At least initially, this is unsettling to many (if not most) people—me included. This discomfort is because, as prideful humans, we like to believe we are in full control of our destinies at all times, and that we can initiate or terminate things related to our ultimate destinies at will. Having free will (or free choice depending on how you would like to define it) does not mean the same thing as having full control (sovereignty) over factors external to ourselves that affect or otherwise influence our decision-making (e.g., other humans with their own free will).²

The three initial steps mentioned above are performed by the three Persons of God (known as the “Trinity”: the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit). The Trinity is a mystery and paradox in which three things are simultaneously true: (1) there is only one God, (2) God operates in three different persons, and (3) each different person of God is fully God. See, e.g., Genesis 1:26; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16, and 63:10; Psalm 45:6-7; Malachi 3:1-2; Matthew 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; and 1 Peter 1:2. We could spend many blog posts going through various nuances of the Trinity, but, for the purposes of this particular blog post, we will keep things simple as summarized above.

The initiator of step one of the five steps is God the Father. The Father must draw you to His son, Jesus Christ. See John 6:44 (NIV) (Jesus says, “’No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.’”). Without the initiative of the Father, nothing else can happen to cause anyone to be born again.

Step two is you being exposed to the special revelation of Jesus Christ. The justifying work of Jesus Christ is accomplished by God in the person of Jesus Christ who is the special revelation of God. Jesus states the following:

All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone that looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

John 6:37-40 (NIV). Your exposure to this truth is multifaceted in that it involves the completed work of Jesus Christ as well as a person or persons in your life being used by God to communicate this special revelation to you in person, through writing, through a video, or some other means of communication.

So far, so good. You haven’t been asked to do anything yet, and you have had absolutely no control over getting to this point.

Step three is the work of the Holy Spirit to wake your spirit up and make it possible for you to have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of the special revelation to which you have been exposed. Jesus said the following: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.” John 6:63. This is encouraging, but this is also a critical juncture which reveals the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. See John 3:8 (NIV) (Jesus says, “’The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”). There is no guarantee that exposure to the special revelation of Jesus Christ results in a person being made alive by being born again of the Spirit. Jesus says so himself in the following verses in John chapter 6 as follows:

“Yet there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

John 6:64-65 (NIV).

Therefore, getting born again is not something you can generate at will or on your schedule. God is not a genie in a bottle. Becoming born again requires the work of the three persons of God working in concert. It starts with the Father initiating the process by drawing a person to Jesus. Jesus plays His part by having accomplished His work on Earth by revealing the special revelation of God to the world and offering Himself as a sacrifice for those that would believe. The Holy Spirit operates sovereignly to move as it pleases and wake from spiritual death those persons that have been drawn by the Father to Jesus.

A logical question at this point is, “So what do I do to get born again?” Answer: You respond to what God has done. The work is completed. It is finished. Your response obligation is to repent (step 4) and believe (step 5) based on what God has done.

We humans are obsessed with performance. It is figuratively built into our human DNA—we understand that performance matters because performing well is what puts food on the table, creates advancement in our endeavors, and ultimately keeps us alive. But when it comes to performing to qualify to be in the presence of a perfect and holy God, we do not have the tools. We are ill-equipped.

While attending Auburn University, I noticed an interesting section of the Auburn Creed (written by Dr. George Perie in 1943). Dr. Petrie was an Auburn professor and the first football coach there. The Auburn Creed is a true and sound guide in almost all situations related to getting things done and getting motivated. The particular section of interest in the Auburn Creed is at the very beginning which reads as follows:

I believe that this is a practical world and that I can count only on what I earn. Therefore, I believe in work, hard work.

Dr. George Petrie, The Auburn Creed (first two sentences) (1943). The key part of interest here is the phrase, “I can count only on what I earn” (emphasis added). Depending on the particular life circumstances to which Dr. Petrie no doubt had in mind when writing The Auburn Creed, Dr. Petrie’s point is generally true. Dr. Petrie is effectively communicating that we are entitled to nothing but the fruits of our labor. However, in the specific context of standing before a perfectly holy and righteous God, “what I earn” (or, said in another way, being self-reliant or self-sufficient) is not going to cut it.³ Nonetheless, we humans naturally focus on ourselves and what we must do. The question of what we are “to do” was even asked by the people around Jesus in John chapter 6 as follows:

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

John 6: 28-29.

Jesus politely reframed the question by His answer. Your “work” is to “believe.” This is good news. The pressure is off. If the plan were based on your works (or my works), it would be very bad news. That does not mean that authentic belief will not result in good works—quite the contrary. See Ephesians 2:10. But the good works set forth in advance for a born again person to do are a result of being born again, not the cause or catalyst for being born again in the first place. There are no partial-birth followers of Christ. Those that the Father draws to Jesus are secure in Jesus. See John 6:37-40 quoted above.

Your specific role of response to God will be discussed in detail in the next blog post. For now, as far as being born “again” (by the Spirit), what is important is to ponder the role you played when you were physically born into this world—when you were born the first time. What did you do to be born?

¹See the Book of John chapter 3. For those that are still highly skeptical of Jesus, the Bible, and authority associated therewith, in subsequent blog posts, we will delve more into reasons why biblical text is reliable both historically and as the inspired Word of God. We will also discuss different scientific and philosophical topics addressing why Jesus answers the ultimate questions of who we are, why we are here, and how we got here.

²I know what some of you are thinking. You are wondering whether I support the doctrine of predestination or the doctrine of free will. I will discuss this in more detail in a later blog post, but I can say that this paradox is a tough one. It was used by God in October 2024 as one of the biggest personal spiritual breakthroughs in my life.

³In defense of Dr. Petrie, his point regarding no entitlement in life still stands because no one is entitled to the love of God as expressed through Jesus Christ. Grace and mercy from God are not earned, and no one is entitled to them.