Hello Kgustafso1,
My name is Donald, Welcome to Talk Jesus Forums. It is always good to have fellowship with the other saints. Ensure that you allow those in your church to minister Gods Word to you. I also had problems when I first got saved from Gods judgements. I sought all kinds of deliverance ministries until my pastor said let the Holy Spirit do His work and don’t go running after a quick fix.
There are basically fours steps to being truly born again. They are as follows:
1) Repent. Repentance means to turn from your sinfulness and turn back to God. We have all fallen short of the Glory of God and this glory is better seen in the person of Jesus Christ. We have all transgressed the laws of God. We have all stolen, lied, hated our neighbour instead of loving them, blasphemed God by using His name with swear words, most of us have had sex outside of marriage; taken things into our bodies like drugs and alcohol etc, etc. All these and more are sins against God. In fact they are rebellion towards God.
2) We all deserve God’s judgements upon us, whether we want to believe that or not. We have all sinned against a holy God. However, God made provision for us that upon repentance we should look to the sinless one, Jesus Christ, His Son who took the judgement for all our sins upon Himself. A sinless man dies for all those who have sinned, Read Rom 5 in conjunction with Genesis 2 and 3. Because of this selfless act of Jesus Chrinst on the cross we can now approach God and ask for forgiveness for all our sins. God is rich in mercy and a loving Father and is willing to forgive anyone who asks for that forgiveness from their heart.
3) Once we have repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross (John 19:30) and sought God’s mercy and received it we must be baptised (Romans 6:1-6). No sprinkling on the forehead but total immersion in water symbolising our death with Jesus Christ on the cross, our burial with Him and our resurrection with Him, He being the first fruits of that resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20). By this we have said to the world, both physical and spiritual, that we have turned away from our sinful past and are now walking in accordance with Gods Laws.
4) Once baptised we are baptised in the Holy Spirit who is our comforter and the one who empowers us to lead a holy and pleasing life to God. This does not mean that we are completely sinless what it does mean is that we are forgiven our sins and Gods remembers them no more. We are declared innocent being justified by the Blood of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).
Now you may wonder how does this all work? I will explain hereunder:
1) CONSECRATION. Consecration means to be set apart. At rebirth we are set apart unto God. When a man proposes marriage to his bride and she accepts she is set apart to him. According to the Word of God she is his by covenant. The body of Christ corporately, is spiritually the bride of Christ. Therefore, all who are genuinely in Him have been set apart unto Him who has gone to the Father in heaven to prepare a place for us (John 14). He will come back and take us to Himself. In the meantime the Holy Spirit sanctifies us and prepares us for His return. Like a mother prepares the bride before the wedding so the Holy Spirit prepares us for our bridegroom. Our garments are white.
2) SANCTIFICATION. Sanctification is a life- long walk with God where He, by His Spirit and His Word cleanses us from our sins (Hebrews 4:12; 1 John 1:5-10). At rebirth we are made holy but in our walk with Him He continues to make us holy (Php 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.). The sin still working in us is now seen as darkness in our minds and therefore our minds must be renewed (Romans 12:1-2). We must not be conformed to this world any longer but must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Read 2 Corinthians 3, we become like a letter from Christ the result of those who have ministered Gods Word into our lives and we grow from glory to glory. Not like Moses who after coming down the mountain the glory of Gods was fading away. We go from glory to glory increasing in Christ likeness and thereby declare to the world the existence of God. We were once part of the world but now we are no longer of it. I want you to consider this. There is a man who goes away from his parents and squanders his life on drugs and sex and alcohol. He revels in his sin and does everything this world promotes. Then one day he realises that he has got to rock bottom and even the world that he so loved and adored hates him because he is now a nothing. He goes home to his father and says he is sorry for what he has done and seeks his father’s forgiveness. His father lovingly shows mercy and forgives and then takes his son and starts to get him off all these things he is addicted to. The parable of the prodigal son says the same thing (Luke 15:8-32). God does the same with us at rebirth.
3) GLORIFICATION. Glorification is when we eventually are in the image of Christ Jesus without any sin or defect. When He returns for us at the end of the age the Holy Spirit would have made the church holy, a chaste virgin, ready to receive her Bridegroom. We all form part of this spiritual bride. I want you to consider the sun in the sky. Can you look at the sun with your eyes and can you approach the sun in you body? What would the earth and the world be like if there was no sun in the sky? The creation declares the glory of God Psalm 19. Psa 19:1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psa 19:2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. Psa 19:3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Psa 19:4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, Psa 19:5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Psa 19:6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The sun is a metaphor for the Son. As Jesus is the light, as Genesis 1:1-5/John 1:1-5 and how Jesus Himself declares, the creation shows just what the Glory of Christ Jesus would be like in heaven. His radiance can not be looked upon with fleshly eyes nor can we approach Him in our flesh. We must be born again. Our good works and resultant pride will not get us into His glorious light. Anyone attempting that would be pushed out into the outer darkness because darkness cannot come into light, it is a physical and spiritual impossibility. Read Matthew 22:1-14 with emphasis on verses 11-14. The stars of heaven are a metaphor for angels but also for those saints who have died and have gone to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. Their light still shines in the world today as we still learn from them in the form of the videos, publications, sermons etc which they used as the Holy Spirit led them. Do you know that the moon is a metaphor for the church. It does not have its own light but gets its light from the sun. We too reflect the light of Christ into a dark world. The sun going down is symbolic of Jesus Christ going into the grave and the sun coming up is symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave to the righthand of the Father in heaven.
It is good that you are with your pastor. You must be discipled and as you grow you will shake off all those things that are not of Christ.
I hope this has blessed you brother. There is much, much more than the little I have shared with you. We can now come before the throne to find grace and mercy in our time of need.
God bless you!
