Many Christians today are not interested in what others describe as a second birth. But Jesus gives a graphic picture to Nicodemus about the spiritual birth that needs to happen before one can enjoy full relationship with God.
Nicodemus kept thinking in terms of something physical and Jesus kept talking about being born of the Spirit. Birth is the essential word because as our anger and guilt and shame are washed away, our new original Self is born in us. We are not the same as we were before.
Both kinds of birthing include labor—and pain. Our spiritual birth includes the tears and anguish of remorse of all that we have committed and omitted in our attempts to make ourselves into what we thought we ought to be. There has to be some rearranging of our personality—which has a similar trauma to the pain of parturition.
But just as a mother will declare, as she dotes on the infant she has born, that all the labor pains are worth the result, so one who has experienced spiritual rebirth will declare those labor pains produced something invaluable.
Your second birth awaits your cooperation.
Ann Glover O’Dell
5 August 2018
Ann Glover O'Dell 