born-again

A transformed life is the greatest of all miracles. Every time a person is __orn again_ by repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ, the miracle of regeneration is performed.

This living light found in books and letters showing us the mind and heart of God; love written in letters also flowing with blood let's us see into the past and future alike giving hope, faith, and love on every page writing a never ending story on the hearts of men, women, and children alike who receive such truth and follow this light.

Wait, go back to that Southern Baptist part,_ Julia said, interrupting, as she does. __re you a born-again?_ articulating her question as if she were asking me if I were really a headhunter or a Martian. __es,_ I said, __ut I'm not an asshole. At least not theologically speaking.

I have a complicated spiritual history. Here's the short version: I was born into a Mass-going Roman Catholic family, but my parents left the church when I was in the fifth grade and joined a Southern Baptist church__es, in Connecticut. I am an alumnus of Wheaton College__illy Graham's alma mater in Illinois, not the Seven Sisters school in Massachusetts__nd the summer between my junior and senior year of (Christian) high school, I spent a couple of months on a missions trip performing in whiteface as a mime-for-the-Lord on the streets of London's West End. Once I left home for Wheaton, I ended up worshiping variously (and when I could haul my lazy tuckus out of bed) at the nondenominational Bible church next to the college, a Christian hippie commune in inner-city Chicago left over from the Jesus Freak movement of the 1960s, and an artsy-fartsy suburban Episcopal parish that ended up splitting over same-sex issues. My husband of more than a decade likes to describe himself as a __ollapsed Catholic,_ and for more than twenty-five years, I have been a born-again Christian. Groan, I know. But there's really no better term in the current popular lexicon to describe my seminal spiritual experience. It happened in the summer of 1980 when I was about to turn ten years old. My parents had both had born-again experiences themselves about six months earlier, shortly before our family left the Catholic church__uch to the shock and dismay of the rest of our extended Irish and/or Italian Catholic family__nd started worshiping in a rented public grade school gymnasium with the Southern Baptists. My mother had told me all about what she'd experienced with God and how I needed to give my heart to Jesus so I could spend eternity with him in heaven and not frying in hell. I was an intellectually stubborn and precocious child, so I didn't just kneel down with her and pray the first time she told me about what was going on with her and Daddy and Jesus. If something similar was going to happen to me, it was going to happen in my own sweet time. A few months into our family's new spiritual adventure, after hearing many lectures from Mom and sitting through any number of sermons at the Baptist church__ach ending with an altar call and an invitation to make Jesus the Lord of my life__ got up from bed late one Sunday night and went downstairs to the den where my mother was watching television. I couldn't sleep, which was unusual for me as a child. I was a champion snoozer. In hindsight I realize something must have been troubling my spirit.Mom went into the kitchen for a cup of tea and left me alone with the television, which she had tuned to a church service. I don't remember exactly what the preacher said in his impassioned, sweaty sermon, but I do recall three things crystal clearly: The preacher was Jimmy Swaggart; he gave an altar call, inviting the folks in the congregation in front of him and at home in TV land to pray a simple prayer asking Jesus to come into their hearts; and that I prayed that prayer then and there, alone in the den in front of the idiot box. Seriously. That is precisely how I got __aved._ Alone. Watching Jimmy Swaggart on late-night TV. I also spent a painful vacation with my family one summer at Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Heritage USA Christian theme park in South Carolina. But that's a whole other book_

When you are wildly inlove with SOMEONEIt changes your whole life.#JC

If I would be made come to earth again, I would ask for the same mother again. If made to return 100 times to earth, I would request to be born through the same mother 100 times!

Is there any grace like go and sin no more.

He knows he will be born again, And start fresh anew.

Life is all about Re-Inventing Yourself, so that you can rejoice every moment, just un-learn and let-go of the past and no sooner you do it, you stay afresh and are born again!

We are born to make manifest the glory of God.

Never keep your brain so full that people__ opinions take up every pew in your mind, and truth has to be __orn again_ before it is believed.

We all have that divine moment, when our lives are transformed by the knowledge of the truth.

When someone puts an end to something, it doesn't mean that he gave up, it means that thing is not taking him anywhere.

Pour Into My Spirit...spread your arms around meconsole me and keep me close -wield your mighty swordto vanquish all my foes...

Just underneath your breaking point lies your true strength.

I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation__one other than an interest in being born again as somebody else__uggests that he is not happy!

Every 'Born again' Christian is already called to be a Minister of God (By Commission, Matthew 28:19) and a Royal Priest (By Calling, 1 Peter 2:9).The only thing left now for us Christians to achieve in this small life is, To become A Compassionate individual (1 Peter 3:8), An Effective Disciple (John 8:31,32) and A Better Christian (Philippians 1:9-11).

You only live once, but can be born twice. Then, you can live forever.