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I Believe in the New Birth

And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Mark 1:7-8

Watch Week Eight Day Four

Rebirth and Regeneration

Before Jesus’ public ministry began, John the Baptist told the people, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7–8). Jesus brought a new baptism to God’s people to mark the new covenant. Baptize means to dip or sink. While John baptized using water, Jesus “dips” believers in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Sprit indwells every Christian.

A leader within the Jewish community, Nicodemus, respected Jesus and told Him that he believed Jesus came from God. “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). Nicodemus asked for clarification, and Jesus explained, “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” (John 3:5–6) To enter God’s kingdom, Jesus says, we must be born again, which means we must be born of the Spirit. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to baptize every true believer. Paul tells us this marks us as Christians: “ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). The moment you become a Christian, all your sins are forgiven, and God places His Holy Spirit within you. Paul described this as becoming a new creation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The moment you become a Christian, God regenerates you. If you are a believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in you today, and you are a new creation.

Baptized in the Holy Spirit

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live in His followers. The Holy Spirit helps us grow spiritually and empowers us to follow Christ and do His will. Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus told His disciples, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. . . . [You] will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’” (Acts 1:5, 8). The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to share the gospel.

The Holy Spirit also unites us together as Christians. Paul wrote, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13).

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Daily Question

If through the baptism of the Spirit we are truly “born again,” how does that change our ability to obey all that God commands?

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Comments (2)

For me it changes my ability because I am wanting to do right wanting to please God wanting to MAKE Him PROUD of me!!! it’s because I WANT to do it not because I have to do it. Do I fail absolutely but God is always there to help me forgive me as I keep short accounts asking to wash me in his forgiveness bubbles. The change for me and the ability to obey (with his help not myself) is because it is what I want to do, make him proud??. I hope You are.

it should strengthen us to be and live as God has intended his children to do. becoming a Christian is not a free pass to do as one will. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for our lives. God wants for us to live good lives just as any parent wants for a child. when you truly love and honor your parent and realize that their commandments are done with love and not ontrol, it should be an honor to follow their commandments.

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