New Life

As I write, roughly thirty college students involved in our ministry are overseas on short-term mission trips. They are on six-week trips, some in East Asia and some in North Africa.

Yesterday I got an exciting report that one girl in North Africa trusted Christ for eternal life. This is particularly encouraging because our team is ministering in a Muslim country that is very resistant to the Gospel. At present, there are fewer than five hundred Christians in the country of more than ten million people. So we were naturally thrilled to hear the news of a new sister in Christ.

Today my wife Shannon and I went to the doctor and saw an ultrasound of our expected baby, due this coming January. Watching the tiny heartbeat and seeing this little one instilled a profound sense of awe.

The juxtaposition of these events in my life reminded me of the scene in John 3, in which Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be "born again" to enter the kingdom of heaven. That phrase is so commonly used in evangelical circles that we often forget how it utterly confused Nicodemus. How could a person be born again?

Jesus explained, in essence, that a human child is born of the flesh, but a believer is born of Spirit. Two births are necessary for true life.

One birth from the mother's womb, in which the child is knit together by God (Psalm 139).

One birth by the Spirit of God alone, in which the believer is made new.

Praise the Lord of new life for graciously giving us both.

And Lord, please lead my two little ones to receive your second birth, one not of flesh but of Spirit alone.