Why you must be born again

Recent question I received about Christianity:

Why does it seem to only appeal to people with "problems?"

And why do Christians always talk about the time they became Christians? Weren't most of them raised as Christians to begin with?

First of all, to be a Christian, you must surrender to God. There must always be an actual conversion experience where one travels the gulf between being a non-Christian and being a Christian, in which the new believer renders control of their life over to God, in exchange for His divine life. It begins as a simple transaction: my will for His. But immediately upon making that transaction, that deliberate act of regular, mundane, human will, something miraculous and transcendent happens. You become *transformed* into something you were not and could never be before through your own human power and your own imperfect wisdom and your own limited understanding. You become a child of God. A Christian is not just somebody who believes in or practices a religion. A Christian is somebody who has been transformed by God into a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

People who do not feel that they have a problem are not as prone to making such a radical decision as turning over their will to an invisible friend. Indeed, that would be the definition of foolishness to most people comfortable in their world and where their decisions are taking them. Hence, it is always at a point of crisis, a crossroad, that a person becomes a true believer in Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 3:3-8
Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?"

Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Colossians 1:13-22
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight

Colossians 2:11-15
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

John 5:24
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."

Colossians 3:3
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Romans 6:8
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him

Romans 6:10
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

2 Peter 1:3-4
His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Question: why would God want four billion children?

Answer: because He loves us. God is love, and He is unwilling that any should perish.

"Abba" is Aramaic for "father."

Romans 8:15
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

Galatians 4:6
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"