Pip: There is something quietly radical about a site called Being a Pilgrim — it implies you are always in transit, never quite arrived, which is either deeply spiritual or a very honest description of a Monday morning.
Mara: korgrocker's recent writing explores what it actually means to be born again in Christianity — the theology, the experience, and what it demands of a life. Let's start with that question directly.
What It Means to Be Born Again
Pip: The phrase "born again" carries a lot of cultural baggage — it gets attached to political identities and fringe labels — but the post wants to strip that back and ask what Jesus actually meant when He said it was necessary.
Mara: The post sets the stakes plainly, drawing on Luke 9:23: "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me." That is the baseline commitment being described.
Pip: So this is not a one-time event with a certificate. It is a daily reckoning — the cross is not a symbol worn round the neck but a repeated choice about how to live.
Mara: The post builds out what that life looks like across several dimensions. A Christian is someone redeemed from sin, justified by grace rather than works. Romans 5:1 is quoted: "since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us."
Pip: And Ephesians 2:8-9 makes the same point with some force — salvation is framed explicitly as a gift, not a reward, so nobody can claim credit for it.
Mara: Then there is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38 describes the Spirit as a gift received at repentance and baptism, and 1 Corinthians 6:19 follows: "your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God."
Pip: The upshot is that being born again is not a personality type — it is a described condition with specific characteristics: the Spirit present, the fruit of the Spirit growing, the life being gradually reshaped.
Mara: That reshaping is sanctification — Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The post frames these as produced by the Spirit, not achieved by effort alone.
Pip: And it ends on adoption — John 1:12-13 on becoming children of God — with the Prodigal Son as the image of what that family relationship actually looks like when it goes wrong and comes right again.
Mara: The closing prayer draws on Psalm 139: "Search me, O God, and know my heart." The post treats self-examination not as anxiety but as the natural posture of someone who trusts the examiner.
Pip: What stays with me is that the post refuses to let "born again" be a label — it insists on making it a lived condition, tested daily.
Mara: A pilgrim in transit, as you said. Still walking, still being shaped. More on that journey next time.
Being a Pilgrim 