born again?

BORN AGAIN

I was asked the other day if I was born again, I answered of course I was, as are all persons on the earth who have a body. Only in the Bible Belt will one ever be asked questions, upon being introduced for the first time, What church did you go to last week? or Are you born again? I currently live in Mississippi and when I first moved here I found that the ice-breaker questions when introduced to a person were almost always about ones religion or the condition of ones soul. Where I am from (Arizona) that topic may not come up in conversation for years after being introduced to a new person, if ever.

So to answer the question as to whether or not one has been born again, lets go to the scriptures for an answer.

First of all we were all born of the spirit Gen. 1:26-28. And as spirit children of the Father we were given our first commandment, "Be fruitful, and Multiply, and replenish the earth..." So Adam and Eve had to leave the garden in order to fulfill that commandment. There are those who blame Adam and Eve for all our troubles, but in reality without their failure in the garden we would not be here. We would have remained in spirit form forever. After the war in Heaven Lucifer and his followers (1/3 of Gods spirit children) were cast to the earth to wonder about without a body. When they figured out they had made a mistake in following Lucifer these spirits began to indwell in as many bodies as they could. Christ spent time on several occasions casting out such demons from bodies the had been occupying. Bodies are an important part of our progression, without them we can not return to the Father. (John 3:13). We have to accept Christ after gaining a body inorderfor us to return in spirit form to the Father and gain a new body.

So in reality we earthlings who have been been born in the flesh have been born again. Having been born first in the spirit.

Now if you come to the earth and gain a body without knowing Christ you will have the opportunity to accept Christ while in paradise and someone here on earth can be baptised for you. If you accept that baptism then you can be saved at the second-coming. 1 Peter 4:1-6 and I Cor. 15:29. We must be baptised, Mark 16:16, when Christ died he did not go to be with the father straightway, but when to Paradise first to set up his church so all persons who die without knowing Him as savior can accept Him while in the spirit, after first gaining a body through birth on this earth. When He appeared to Mary in the Garden He told her not to tough him as he had not yet gone to be with he Father. John 20:16-18, Later that day He returned from the Father with his new body and interacted with folks for 40 days, before ascending to the father once more with the promise to return again. Acts 1:9-11.

The term Born Again as it pertains to salvation was coined by a Baptist preacher in Georgia around 1835. It was used to refer to the slaves who had been baptised. Having been born "wrong" the first time and now through baptism were now "Born again." The term was then adopted by mainstream religions to refer to all who accepted Christ as their savior and were baptised. It very well could be a metaphor for baptism, but when Christ was talking to Nicodemus in John the third chapter he was referring to being born of the spirit in the pre-existence and then being born again in the flesh as he was, Christ told him that no man can return to the father without first being from the father. So there you have it, if some one asks you if you have been born again just say , "Sure, haven't we all?"