MY LEAST IMPORTANT BIRTHDAY

Seventy-two years ago today, my mother, through much suffering, brought me into this world.  Her water broke, and she delivered me, her only child, her only son.  Two thousand years ago, give or take a few, Mary brought forth her first born, a Son, and she named Him Jesus.  Her water broke, she suffered, and the result was Emmanuel:  God with us (Mt. 1:23)!  That is where the resemblance between Jesus and I ends.  We were both born physically.

Jesus went on to live a perfect, sinless life (Heb. 4:15), and He was murdered somewhere around the age of thirty-three.  I, on the other hand, have done very little but sin over my lifetime, and yet, I am still here.  Amazing!  I spent twenty years in the military, had two .45 caliber pistols pointed at me from less than ten feet, had blood clots in both lungs, had a heart attack, and have lived with congestive heart failure for many years; yet, here I am! 

In John's Gospel, Jesus told a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who had come to speak with Him under the cover of darkness, that he needed to be born a second time.  Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (Jn. 3:3).  Of course, Nicodemus found the Lord's words to be ludicrous.  Nicodemus responded by saying, "How can a man be born when he is old?  Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born" (v. 4)?

Of course, the answer is no; the physical birth can only occur one time.  Jesus explained that He was speaking of another kind of birth.  He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (v. 5).  Jesus went on to explain the difference between the two births necessary for a man to be part of God's Kingdom; He said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh (water); and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (v. 6-7).  The two births differ in one main factor:  the physical birth comes with the breaking of the mother's water, while the Spiritual birth is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (v. 8 - note that the spiritual birth is compared to the working of the wind; the word for "breath," "wind," and "spirit," are the same:  Strong's #4151).

Jesus explained, elsewhere in John's Gospel, what takes place when a man is born again.  The Father draws him to believe (Jn. 6:44), the Spirit convinces man he is a sinner needing a Savior, and that Jesus is the Savior (Jn. 16:7-15), and when he accepts Jesus, he becomes a child of God (Jn. 1:12).

That happened to me on January 31, 1971.

That is the birthday I love to celebrate!