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YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN 

JESUS AND SPIRITUAL BIRTH 

                                                                        By  June Estelle Cash

                                                 BIBLEBUFFJOURNAL-BIBLELADY99CASH

                     JESUS WAS BUSY.   IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF HIS MINISTRY. 

           Jesus had been busy, proclaiming who He was, 

  and telling everyone that He was from the Father.

  He even entered into the Temple,  and sent out 

 all the buyers and sellers with their animals.

  "Take these things hence, make not my Father's

 house an house of merchandise."
 [John chapter 2.16].   It was Passover time.  

 And Nicodemus came at night.

          

 The day had been filled with questions.  What sign will you give us? the leaders asked him ?hen they said,  "Forty and six years this temple was in building, and you will rear it up in three days?"   They had no clue as to what he was saying. 

  John chapter 2.21 to 23 tells us :  " But he spake of the temple of his body.  When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them, and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."
         So in the evening, when no one would know that he came,  Nicodemus came to inquire of Jesus.    A man of the Pharisees, he was a "ruler of the Jews".    A person of known leadership, yet he came that night.    "Rabbi,  we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." 
              Are you a master of Israel and knowes t not these things?

        Nicodemus was one of those who were LOOKING for the KINGDOM OF GOD.   And here now, Jesus, Y'SHUA, was telling him that he must be born into that kingdom.   He is listening.   He had seen Jesus cast out the merchants from the temple along with the animals.   Then he had sat and taught in the Temple.  He must have questions running through his mind.   He is distraught, because he knows the other Pharisees do not like Y'SHUA at all.   They are very determined to find his weakness, and to criticize.    Not Nicodemus.   He came, seeking.
              Nicodemus would understand what he was saying about Moses and the serpent being raised in the wilderness.    The account is told in Numbers 21 that the people were again complaining and murmuring that "there was no bread, and no water"  even though they were receiving MANNA from heaven as needed, and even though God told Moses to strike the rock for water.    So God sent serpents among the people and they were being bitten by these.   Many died.   God told Moses to make a serpent of BRASS - which speaks of JUDGMENT - up on a pole.   So he did.
           It never records what Nicodemus did.    I would like to think he did find Christ.   Scripture does not speak on this.    I do however, wish to say, that I know I have come into the family of those who are BORN AGAIN.   I found that reading God's Word watered my soul with living water and refreshing life because the Good News of God's love has opened my life to God, and I believed that Jesus is just who He says He is, and that He has become my Savior.    I am thankful that Jesus came to give us LIFE ETERNAL, LIFE EVERLASTING, and that He has given me His Spirit to live inside me that I may find Hope and Strength and Joy in my life.   His Spirit living in me is the way God has sealed me for Himself, that someday I will be with Him forever.

        Jesus  replies "Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again,he cannot see the Kingdom of God." 

 [John 3.3]. Responding,  Nicodemus asks "How can a man be born when he is old?  can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?"   Jesus replies, "Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and 

of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."

  [John 3.5]  He goes on to say "that which is born of the 

flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.    Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born again. 

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 

sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.  [John 3.4 - 8].  

 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, "How can these things be?"  

         My heart fills with love for the Lord Jesus Christ as I continue on in the record of what He said to Nicodemus.    He knew Who He was, What He had come to do, and What was Needed for us to know Him.   He made it very plain.

         Jesus responds to Nicodemus with these words:   

 Verily, Verily I say unto thee, we speak that we do know,

and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our

 witness.    If I have told  you earthly things, 

and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I 

 tell you of heavenly things? [John ch. 3.10,11, 12].

           

 Then Jesus continues,  And no man hath

ascended up to heaven, but he that came

down from heaven, even the Son of man which is 

 in heaven.   And as Moses

 lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,

 even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that

 whosoever believeth in him should not perish but

 have eternal life.  FOR GOD SO LOVED THE 

  WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM 

 SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.

 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be 

saved.   He that believeth on him is not condemned; 

but he that believeth not is condemned already,

 because he hath not believed in the name of the only 

 begotten Son of God."   [John 3.13 - 18]

             So Jesus spoke, telling Nicodemus out plain 

what he wanted to know.   Nicodemus is just like us.

We hear a lot about the Bible,  about religion, about what some people believe either for or against Jesus.  Now

here Nicodemus knew a lot was at stake.  His people had been looking for Messiah, and the expectancy was great.   A great longing for a return of THE KING to set 

up his kingdom.  Everyone knew WHO JESUS WAS.    THEY KNEW his lineage.   It was recorded in the Temple.   They knew of him as the Rightful Heir of the line of David.   They knew that this might be MESSIAH.  But they did not like what he was telling them.   They were looking for S I G N S  but He was telling them, He was

 the Messiah and that He was from Heaven, and would go back to Heaven.  And that Life came from believing in Him.  

              Jesus went on to say 'And this is the condemnation that Light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest their deed should be reproved.     But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought in God."     [John 3.19 21].

They were told to LOOK AT THE SERPENT - AND THEY WOULD BE HEALED.

           

            Nicodemus knew that the sin was represented 

by the serpent on the cross. Now here is Y'shua telling

 him that only by being born into the family can he see 

the Kingdom of God, and furthermore, that He, 

Y'shua would be lifted up just as the serpent was. 

   The Cross was why Jesus, Y'shua, came.  

  He came to be our once and for PASSOVER LAMB to bear our sins on the Cross of Golgotha. He came knowing what he had come to do was the only way

 for us to be born of the Spirit.