Good Saturday morning! A paper in front of me bears the facsimiles of two signatures I don't see very often any more. The second signature looks a lot like "Cobele", I'm not sure if that signifies anything or is just confusing. The military seemed to prefer our signatures legible and even ordered us to us our middle initial in the full payroll signature as they called it. Unfortunately, the signature thing in the military has made me somewhat more cognizant of other signatures than perhaps most people are in the normal daily life. Is this useful in any way? Perhaps for a bank teller, but for me it's mainly just a distraction. There, paper turned over so as to not bother me any longer.
Slowly and Gently
Have you ever been forced to train or learn at an accelerated pace? You may have been sent to one of the business world's so-called 'boot camps' or been placed into an accelerated program in school. In either case, the new material to learn may have come at a pace that left you feeling a little stupid or slow. Today, Nicodemus is probably feeling kind of ignorant after being told that he must be born again. Nicodemus has blurted out the obvious question about an old man and his mother, but does not yet understand what Jesus means. In today's verse, Jesus gives him a little more to ponder on.
Jesus replied, "I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit." John 3:5
Jesus now gives Nicodemus the two births that we must undergo in order to get to Heaven, or to see the Kingdom of God as Jesus said. Nicodemus probably has no more idea what being born of the Spirit means than he did of how to be reborn physically, but at least he now knows that the second birth is not a physical one. Even today we use the expression, "her water broke" to mean that a new baby is soon to come into the world. This expression is more than likely as old as the first human birth. Nicodemus knew what being born of water meant, but what is this born of the Spirit all about? Jesus will go on to explain further, but like us, he brings Nicodemus along slowly and gently. We can only learn so much at a time. New things, such as being born of the Spirit, can be startling and hard to learn. Jesus brought in his person and words an entirely knew message. Nicodemus is getting the Good News and he can't take it all in at once. We tend to ask questions at times not so much to get a different answer, but to give our own minds a chance to catch up. In my case the tactic doesn't always work, but a new thing can be difficult to grasp. Here, Nicodemus, a learned man of the Pharisees has met the Good News in the person of Jesus Christ. A lot of changing is going to have to take place in the mind of Nicodemus to absorb this new message from God. We were in just that same state when we first came to believe in Jesus. Be patient if it seems you don't understand much more than you did then: Jesus is bringing you along slowly and gently.
Have a wonderful day in Christ!
Bucky
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