@ LibertyGal

> Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10) If we want to have a clean heart, to know Jesus as Savior, and to join Him in heaven for all eternity, we need a new heart. A friend of ours from church had a failing heart. It wasn’t working right. He couldn’t do any physical activity. Eventually he was limited to bedrest. He needed a new heart (physical). One day, a heart donor became available. Someone needed to die so that he could get the new heart he needed. One day, he went through surgery and a new physical heart was implanted in his chest. After receiving a new heart, he had to go through lots of Physical Therapy to build up his body and his heart, so everything was working as it was supposed to. In the same way we are broken, sinful men and women. Our hearts are corrupted and failing and we are quickly heading towards death. Jesus died to take away our sins and when we repent of our sins, acknowledge Him as our Savior, Lord, and God, He gives us a new heart. From the moment of salvation, we have a new heart and are a new person. This is Salvation and it happens instantaneously. We go from spiritually dead to spiritually alive. ### Born Again Being born again is a hard thing to understand. Even the top spiritual leaders of Jesus’s time couldn’t understand it. Here is Jesus’s explanation: > Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”<br><br> Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into 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 be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”<br><br> Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.<br><br> “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:1-21) {emphasis mine} One thing that science has never been able to explain is the soul of man. People are more than just biology. We are body, mind, and soul. We are more than chemical reactions. Our body may be finite and decaying, but our soul is not. It will exist for all eternity. The important thing is that our soul be renewed to its perfect state by repentance and faith in Jesus. When my sons were little, I allowed them to make small mistakes where they suffered small consequences, so they could learn and avoid making big mistakes with life changing consequences. I encouraged them to climb stairs in spots where there were only 2-3 steps, so they could fall, learn about heights, but not get any serious injuries. I allowed them to waste a few dollars and regret their choices, so they would not waste their money and indebt themselves in adulthood. In the same way, God allowed Adam and Eve to chose to disobey God and pay the consequences for that choice, but He also made a way to escape those consequences. “*For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life*.” We now have a second chance to make the right choice and to choose to repent and trust Jesus. If we chose to reject Jesus, we are “*judged already, because he(we) has(have) not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God*.” ### Regeneration When we are born again, there should be an immediate change in our thoughts, words, and actions. No, we don’t go from non-stop sinners to perfect saints in that instant, but there should be immediate change. Depending on our lives before accepting Jesus, this change may be more or less dramatic, but it should still be obvious to those around them. When my oldest son was little, he said that he had trusted Jesus. He was a people pleaser and a submissive child and he wanted to please his parents. The first time he told us this, we looked at his life and rather easily determined that he had not truly been saved. A year or two later, he came and said the same thing. At that point we saw a definite change in him that was obvious to us despite the fact that he had been a “good” son before being born again. There is always a change. In the case of Saul/Paul, the change in his life was immediately obvious to everyone around him. > Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way (Christians), both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.<br><br> Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:1-16) Saul went from doing everything in his power to destroy the church and to destroy all belief in Jesus to being Paul who suffered and died to share the truth of Jesus with people all around the world. The change was so dramatic that even many of the Christians couldn’t believe that his conversion was real. It didn’t make sense to them. Only the power of God is able to change a heart from sinfulness leading to separation from God, to righteousness and love leading to eternity in God’s presence. Of all the miracles in the Bible, this change of heart in believers may be the greatest. ### Salvation vs Sanctification From the moment of saving faith and repentance, we have God’s salvation. > But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13) We are given the gift of His forgiveness, the indwelling of His Spirit, and the promise of eternity with Him. On the other hand, sanctification takes time. Sanctification takes effort learning to submit to God’s will and to rely on the power of the Spirit in us rather than on our own power. In the movie A Princess Bride, one of the main characters, Wesley, is tortured “to death.” The other characters take him to Miracle Max to see if he can be brought back to life. Miracle Max says Wesley is “only mostly dead and mostly dead is partially alive.” Some believers are only mostly dead, but mostly dead is partially alive. Sanctification is the process of reviving us from mostly dead, to alive and in the image of God and His son, Jesus Christ. No Christian should stay in this mostly dead state. We should NOT resemble the sinners of the world. We should resemble Jesus. The Holy Spirit helps guide us and empower us to become more alive and more like Jesus. He changes our hearts from a cold heart of stone, to a loving heart in accordance to God’s will. Although sanctification is really a work of the Holy Spirit, there are things we can do, with the help of the Spirit to become more alive in Jesus. We can read the Bible to learn more about who God is and what He expects from us. We can pray for His help accomplishing His will and changing our will to be inline with His will. The more we know about God and who He is, the more we know what we should become and what is pleasing to Him. Being saved requires us to know that Jesus is God and that we are sinners. It requires us to trust in what Jesus did for us and to submit to His will. Being sanctified requires so much more. How can we trust someone we don’t really know? How can we become like someone of whom we only have a cursory knowledge? We need to know more about God (primarily by reading the Bible), and we need to know God better (primarily by talking to Him and listening to Him through prayer). Sanctification also requires time. Nobody becomes an expert at anything instantly. We get better at things through practice. Now this doesn’t mean that we sanctify ourselves or do this by ourselves. Just like salvation is a work of God, so is sanctification, but we do need to learn over time. As we trust Him and obey Him, we see that He is faithful and His way is the best way causing us to trust and obey Him more. It builds on itself helping us to grow to become more like Jesus. Sins (no matter how “small”) that didn’t seem like a big deal will become a big deal to us as we grow to view the world as God does. > And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32) This growth will prepare us for eternity in God’s presence. > He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name. (Revelation 3:12) God can do anything, but I’ve never seen a person instantly go from being a sinner, separated from God to having a 100% proper view of God and His will and having a perfectly correct view of our relationship with Him. Hopefully as you live your life through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will continue growing in this wisdom, in knowledge of Him, and in likeness to Jesus. Pray with me, “*Create in me a clean heart*.” Trust Jesus. FYI, Read my whole series on the individual [fruits of the Spirit](https://trustjesus.substack.com/p/fruits-of-the-spirit-6fc) listed in Galatians 5 Bible verses are NASB (New American Standard Bible) 1995 edition unless otherwise stated