Dear Chima, I am the happiest man alive right now because you finally said yes to Jesus. You know, when I called you last week inviting you into the love of Abba, I didn't know what to expect, maybe because I had heard a lot of testimonies about how difficult you could be. After praying about you, I called hoping and praying you'd say Yes to Jesus and you did. I believe congratulations are in order! Welcome home.

Now that you are born again, what is the next step? Where do you go from here? And that, my brother, is the purpose of this letter and others that would follow. You could say I aim these letters at following you up and disciplining you into becoming like Jesus Christ.

The story of Nicodemus in John chapter 3 teaches us that a man could be born into a Christian family, go to catechism, become a pastor, keep the religious demands of the law all his life but yet not know God.

1-2 After dark one night a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, came for an interview with Jesus. “Sir,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miracles are proof enough of this.”

3 Jesus replied, “With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this: Unless you are born again, you can never get into the Kingdom of God.”

4 “Born again!” exclaimed Nicodemus. “What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

5 Jesus replied, “What I am telling you so earnestly is this: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit,[a] he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 6 Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven; 7 so don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again! 8 Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it will go next, so it is with the Spirit. We do not know on whom he will next bestow this life from heaven.”

9 “What do you mean?” Nicodemus asked.

10-11 Jesus replied, “You, a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I am telling you what I know and have seen—and yet you won’t believe me.

-John 3:1-11

Vs 10 captures my point better. Even Jesus was surprised at Nicodemus for not knowing these truths.

To be born again simply means to be born of the Spirit of God. It entails a change of nature.

Salvation can not be transferred from parents to children. When dying men write their will, salvation is not among the inheritance left behind, hence the need for every man to make this very important decision. And this decision must be made deliberately and consciously.

So it doesn't matter if a man is born by a bishop, he still needs to be saved by Jesus Christ exactly the same way a prostitute needs salvation because a man is not a sinner because he commits sin instead he commits sin because he is a sinner. Confused? I'll explain it.

Let me tell you a short story. There were two boys, Moses and Fred, who got admitted into Unizik the same year. Moses was a very serious student while Fred was frivolous, often he missed lectures. You could count how many times Fred was in class while Moses was always in class answering questions, doing his assignments and working very hard to ace his papers during the examinations. Lecturers knew him and would always say pleasant things about him.

But then there was a problem, Moses could not pay his school fees. And he needed to pay before he would receive his Reg/Matric number, which qualifies him as a legitimate student and grants him access to write the examination. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get his reg number before the examinations and was denied access into the hall, although he was popular amongst lecturers and students.

Fred paid his fees and was granted immediate access into the examination hall even though nobody knew him, he had his reg number and that was all that mattered, a boy is not a student because he attends lectures, does his assignments and is known by lecturers instead he is a student because he has the school’s registration number.

Sin is a nature, and until that nature is crucified at calvary, all the good a man can do won't grant him access into heaven. It is that nature of sin that Jesus came to deal with.

 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.[c] So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

-Rom 8:3-4

God created man in his image so He can inhabit him, but until this nature of sin is dealt with, God cannot inhabit a man. The same way a hand glove is made in an image of a hand, this is how God made man in His image. But sin occupies man and hinders the actualization of this purpose and therefore Jesus came; to destroy the works of the enemy, which is chiefly sin.

Until next week, ponder on these. And if you have questions, you know how to reach me.