Unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God

             Most people who talk God talk merely have a conceptual experience of the God they talk about.  God is a word they have heard and maybe read about, but they have no experience of him.  They go to church, hear the Bible read, listen to a sermon, but it does not bring about change in their lives.  They are merely sleep-walking.  Their belief in God produces law, ritual, and rules but lacks reality.  They have not experienced the God they profess to know.  They say God is good, loving, and all-powerful but they have not experienced him.  When trial and tribulation occur, they get angry at God and ask where he is.  They think if they are good and follow the rules nothing should go wrong and when it does, they blame God.  The atheist is at least honest enough to realize that they have never experienced God and so they don’t believe that he exists at all or that he is all powerful, loving, and good given the pain and suffering that exists in the world.  So unless you are born again you will never see the kingdom of God. 

            The Christian who lives in experience is one who has recognized his ignorance, his short comings, and his human condition and by faith has been drawn to Jesus to remedy the human predicament he is in.  That person who has confessed with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in his heart that Christ was raised from the dead shall be saved, for with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rm10:9-10)  God realizing full well that without a visible sign no rational man would believe God as good, loving , and all powerful in a world of sickness, suffering, and death sent his Son to demonstrate the Truth and to provide the means of receiving everlasting life.  It is through the miracle of salvation that a person begins to live in experience of the Truth and no longer lives only in belief in a concept without any concrete substance.  We are made righteous by faith in Christ not by living in Law, rituals, and rules. 

            We are all born under the Law.  We are all born with a sin nature.  We are all born in ignorance and unbelief.  It is only by the foolishness of preaching Christ does the possibility exist for a person to wake up and be born of the Spirit and have a one on one relationship with God.  We cannot see the kingdom of God any other way.  We cannot enter the kingdom of God any other way.  No man can come to God the Father without going through Jesus the Son. 

            If you have gone to church all your life and tried to be a good person but have never experienced the reality of God, recognize your human condition, ask Jesus into your heart, ask him to forgive your sin, and asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit and leave the rest to God.  When you come to know the Truth, the Truth will make you free and you will live in Truth not merely abstraction.

Amen