My Meeting with Nicodemus

Meditations based on readings from

The Story of My Life As Told by Jesus Christ

August 9, 2017

My Meeting with Nicodemus

Page 57-58

John 3:1-21

“Are you born again?” Some evangelists are fond of asking that question because their focus is on identifying a particular time and place where a person confessed faith in Jesus. However, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus was not about a once in a lifetime experience. Notice Jesus said we must be born of water and the 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 into 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 that 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 we made our confession of faith. 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 21, 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. Jesus is saying that he must be nailed to a cross and lifted up so that the whole world can see the result of sin and evil, but in the hands of God, that cross turns into the pathway to 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.

My Takeaway: Jesus says when I am living in God’s light, others will see and will have the opportunity to enter into the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus is a continuing reminder to me to examine my life.  Does the way I am living my life reveal I am living in God’s light? Is my lifestyle an invitation to others to come to the Kingdom of God?   

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.