John 3: Born Again
All Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but there are some Scriptures that we can consider the Himalayan mountaintops of the Bible. In the next few months, we will be looking at a series of great texts that inspire and move us - the "Himalayan Heights" of God's Word.
Today's Reading: John 3:9-13
It is one of the strangest and most powerful confrontations in Jesus' life. A Pharisee named Nicodemus comes to him by night to discuss his teachings and Jesus blows his mind by telling him he must be born again. There is som much power and theological importance in these verses. We will spend the entire week looking at this encounter. Each day, read the entire 21 verses and then come back to meditate on the highlighted section.
There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.10 “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. 11 “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven —the Son of Man.14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
Through the Bible Readings: 2 Chronicles 33-34, Acts 9:26–43, Psalm 79:9–13, Proverbs16:32–33
If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings.
Devotional: Heavenly Knowledge
Matthew 15 records an episode in which Jesus's disciples approach him with trepidation. He has offended the Pharisees and they think, perhaps, he is unaware he has done it. Those were Israel's best and holiest and no one would purposely offend the religious leaders, would they? They pulled him aside and told him what had happened. Maybe they thought he would issue a retraction or clarification, then kiss and make up with the Temple elite. Alas, no.
He doubled down, warning that the Pharisees would soon be uprooted and then he said. "Leave them alone! They are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.” He actually warned the disciples not to pay attention to those who led Israel in its religious duties. He called them blind guides - this is where our phrase "the blind leading the blind" comes from. They were men far from God, with hardened hearts and no understanding of the things of God, trying to explain spiritual truth to God's people.
Jesus had used the simplest human illustrations and metaphors with Nicodemus, but still this "teacher of Israel" was proving that Jesus had been right. He was spiritually blind. He could, perhaps, debate deep theological and philosophical concepts, and certainly he had all sorts of opinions about the Torah and all the arcane rabbinic writings. But the simple idea that Jesus would give new life, that people would receive a new birth from above, it flummoxed him.
Great scientists can delve deeply into the human genome and gain great understanding of the workings of our universe, but still they cannot understand salvation by grace through faith. There are doctors who can perform the most amazing surgeries, doing things that boggle our minds, but the faith of a child is beyond their grasp. Artists can paint pictures or chisel sculptures that inspire us, but when it comes to hammering out the facts of the gospel, they are left helpless. The ability to understand earthly things does not give us the ability to understand heavenly things. That is a gift from God.
Those truths only come when we come into the personal knowledge of the ONE who descended from heaven and ascended again into it. Knowing Christ may not enable me to decode DNA or do brain surgery or become a great artist, but it does open my heart and soul to the knowledge that matters most, the knowledge that changes eternity.
He doubled down, warning that the Pharisees would soon be uprooted and then he said. "Leave them alone! They are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.” He actually warned the disciples not to pay attention to those who led Israel in its religious duties. He called them blind guides - this is where our phrase "the blind leading the blind" comes from. They were men far from God, with hardened hearts and no understanding of the things of God, trying to explain spiritual truth to God's people.
Jesus had used the simplest human illustrations and metaphors with Nicodemus, but still this "teacher of Israel" was proving that Jesus had been right. He was spiritually blind. He could, perhaps, debate deep theological and philosophical concepts, and certainly he had all sorts of opinions about the Torah and all the arcane rabbinic writings. But the simple idea that Jesus would give new life, that people would receive a new birth from above, it flummoxed him.
Great scientists can delve deeply into the human genome and gain great understanding of the workings of our universe, but still they cannot understand salvation by grace through faith. There are doctors who can perform the most amazing surgeries, doing things that boggle our minds, but the faith of a child is beyond their grasp. Artists can paint pictures or chisel sculptures that inspire us, but when it comes to hammering out the facts of the gospel, they are left helpless. The ability to understand earthly things does not give us the ability to understand heavenly things. That is a gift from God.
Those truths only come when we come into the personal knowledge of the ONE who descended from heaven and ascended again into it. Knowing Christ may not enable me to decode DNA or do brain surgery or become a great artist, but it does open my heart and soul to the knowledge that matters most, the knowledge that changes eternity.
Thank you, Father, for opening my simple mind to the truths of eternity, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord. May I be willing to be a fool for Christ.
Think and Pray:
Are you more interested in knowledge that brings success in this world or knowledge that gives you understanding of eternal things?
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