John 2: 23 - 3:21

Sometimes people are tempted to put too much emphasis on Jesus’ statement, “You must be born again.” By too much, I mean their focus is on identifying a particular time and place where a person confessed faith in Jesus as though the whole point of Jesus’ statement was that we needed a once in a lifetime experience. Notice Jesus said we must be born of water and Spirit. Some people take his reference to water as our earthly birth because there is a discharge of water as a natural part of the birthing process. I believe Jesus has in mind our water baptism.

Water baptism marks our initiation into the Kingdom of God and the church through our confession of faith. The Apostle Paul expounds on our being born of the Spirit in Romans six where he discusses our being baptized by the Holy Spirit into the life of Jesus. When you bring these two together, baptized by water and the Spirit, you can see that Jesus anticipates the evidence we have been born again will be the life we are living as opposed to only identifying a particular time and place where you made a confession of faith.

Jesus underscores this point by reminding Nicodemus that God’s ways are not the ways of humankind. When we are born into the Kingdom of God we then begin the process of learning the ways of God. We learn how to come out of the darkness of sin and live in the light of God’s love.

In Numbers Twenty-one Moses made a bronze image of a deadly serpent and placed it on a pole. In Moses’ hands, when the serpent, a symbol of evil and death, was lifted up, and the people looked upon it, they were healed. John is saying that when Jesus was nailed to a cross, lifted up, the whole world can see the result of sin and evil. But, in the hands of God, that cross turns into the pathway of our salvation. When Jesus is lifted high we have the opportunity to come out of the darkness and live in the light of God’s eternal love.

Jesus says when we are living in God’s light others will see and will have the opportunity to join us in God’s love. Does your lifestyle reveal you are living in God’s light?    

What word or phrase in these verses

attracts your attention?

Reflect on that word or phrase.

What insights come to you?

How does this passage touch your life today?

6-Mar-12      John 3:22-4:3