[color=000000] . . born again of Him, I found today's reading [May 13] in "My Utmost for His Highest" quite the confirming message as to what I believe we possess when being born anew of His Spirit. I hope you all do as well.
Of course if Chambers is correct and I believe he is, how shall we accomplish this from Peter unless we are equipped as Jesus was, . . a further confirmation: "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" 1 Pet2.21.
"How are we to “follow His steps”? By imitating Jesus? We cannot begin to. How are we going to have the innocence that Jesus had? In one way only, by being born again from above. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). We can be brought into a state of pristine childlike innocence before God by the regenerating work of His grace. God does something infinitely grander than give a man a new start: He re-makes him from the inside. We have the power, because we have received it, to transform the natural into the spiritual even as Jesus did, because the life generated into us is His own life."
[b]More:
"Eternal Life means the life Jesus lived. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11). Eternal life is the life Jesus lived; the life of God in a mortal being, transformed by God’s regenerating power into harmony with Himself.
“In Him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Why did Jesus live thirty-three years if all He came to do was to die for sin? He lived thirty-three years because He had to show what a normal man after God’s pattern was like. He died that through His death we might have the source of life that was in Him (see Romans 5:17). That is why it is so absurd to say, “I accept Jesus as a Teacher only.” Try to apply the teachings of Jesus to your life without an understanding of His Death and you will find it cannot be done; it would either make you commit suicide or take you to the Cross and give you an understanding of why it was necessary for Him to die."
Chambers, O. (1996, c1943). Bringing sons into glory : Studies in the life of our Lord. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott.
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