Have you ever tried to do something but you messed it up so badly that you needed to completely throw it all away or redo something and start completely all over again?
One time a while ago, I had a rather delicate electronic device that needed to be cleaned. It had collected a bunch of dust inside of it which caused it to overheat after just a short while of using it. I tried to suck out as much dust as I could by using a vacuum cleaner, but it wasn’t enough. The only fix was to take the entire device apart and manually clean each piece with a cloth.
After locating my screwdrivers, I began to disassemble the device piece by piece. I probably removed about 50 or 60 tiny screws in the entire thing, as I slowly took apart each component and set them aside. After I had cleaned each and every piece, it was time to put them all back together again. Like a puzzle, I re-fit every screw and computer chip-board back into place.
I had nearly everything back together again, when I noticed that I had forgotten to attach a wire. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was just a few screws away from completely reassembling this electronic appliance, but I couldn’t plug in that one single wire because I had covered up it’s port with a different part. I had forgotten to plug it in, and the only way for me to fix my mistake was to completely take apart everything once again and only then was I able to connect that wire.
I had to completely start over again.
Jesus teaches us that unless we are born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God. We need to take everything that we think we know, and throw it away, and begin to re-learn everything once again. We need to “start over” once again.
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3
To do something “again” means to bring back to an original starting point, or to do something once more.
When someone is born, they begin their lives as babies with no knowledge of anything. They have no knowledge at that moment of what is right or wrong; they really don’t know much of anything at all. Their mind is like a blank page, waiting to be written.
As that baby grows and turns from a child into an adult, they constantly learn, acquiring knowledge and opinions about things. They learn how to solve problems using what they know. Slowly their blank page begins to fill as the years go by.
But once we become believers, we will realize that not everything that we have learned is correct or right according to what God’s Word teaches. We might have been taught that drunkenness is perfectly fine, but when we read the Bible we learn the truth, that it is a sin.
Once we make that step to become a Christian, we need to completely start over. We need to be reborn in the Spirit of God. To do this, one has to become like a little child once again and learn the ways of Christ.
“At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1-4
Have you ever planted some kind of seed before? If you have then you know that the seed that you put into the ground looks completely different than the plant that will emerge a couple of weeks later. Planting that seed is similar to baptism, which represents the death of a person’s life of sin, and the beginning of a new life in Christ. When they go under the water, they are burying their old self, and are raised back up to start their new life in Jesus. They have been “renewed” in Christ.
“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24
It is time for a change. It is time to forget the teachings of the world, and learn Christ. It is time to become like a child once again, in Jesus.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 