“For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.”
1 Peter 1:23 NLT
We of course remember the conversation that took place between Jesus and Nicodemus, where Jesus said to him, “ … I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:5-7). Earlier in John 1:12-13, John wrote, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God”. So Peter reminded the early believers in the five provinces of their new state as God’s children, following their rebirth.
Those early believers were facing into a perilous existence, with persecution even to the point of death not being uncommon. So the references to the new life in the Spirit was timely and encouraging. It gave them hope for the future, that regardless of what was going to happen to them, their lives would continue. So the new birth that Peter was writing about would not soon be extinguished. It would last forever. Because God said so though His “living word”, who, of course, was Jesus. He was and is the living Word, and though Him we have an eternal hope. We will move on from this life, whenever it will end, into a life spent in eternity. That life will never be under threat of extinction. There will be nothing that will take it away. Paul wrote at the end of Romans 8, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). That love of God, that did not even deny us salvation through His Son, Jesus, is eternal, never ending in its scope and accessibility.
Being born again is a spiritual state available to all. We pilgrims can look back to the time when we believed that Jesus died for us on the cross, that He came back to life from the grave, and provided the only way to Heaven. Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners“. We responded to that love and we’ll never regret it.
Dear Father. You loved us so much that You made a plan to redeem and save us. We will offer up our praise and worship to You for all eternity. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 