What It Really Means to Be Born Again: Surrender, the Spirit, and the Cost of New Life

One can no more *choose* to be born again than to be born in the first place.

Our second birth is foretold by the birth of Jesus. God’s will expressed through the consent of a woman, resulting in a new life.

Now, hear me clearly — I am not suggesting our rebirth makes us divine. But it is designed to bring us into unity with the Father and the Son.

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

We must be called to faith. We must consent, as did Mary, to the work of the Holy Spirit in us. We cannot do this work alone. We cannot will it to be. We are not sufficient for either task.

And if one is called to be born again, the old self becomes the mother, giving birth to the new self in conjunction with the Holy Spirit — suffering the pains of childbirth without the numbing benefit of anesthesia. The pain and the work are real. This is not a metaphor.

This, I fear, is a profound shortcoming of so much Christian teaching today: “Believe and be saved.” Faith equals peace and prosperity. But that is not the message of the Gospel. That is not the lived experience of those who have come closest to God.

There is ongoing work to be done. Not work of service — I am not speaking about fruit. I am speaking of the inner work of formation. Of exchange. Old for new. The self-help Christianity of today will try to convince you to will it into being. To simply try harder.

You cannot. You will not.

You may only deny the work of the Holy Spirit. You can only stand in the way of a second birth.

I witnessed this in the first birth as well. My daughter was so comfortable in her mother’s womb that she refused to be born. Over twenty-four hours of labor, finally brought to an end by C-section.

That refusal lives in all of us spiritually. We resist. We ignore. We deny the Holy Spirit access to what must change in order for a true rebirth to occur.

Being born again is not about the will. It is about surrender, obedience, and trust. Without those three things we are simply pretending. Without the Holy Spirit leading us, we are playing a dangerous game of make-believe. Christ himself makes this plain:

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Be ready for the call. Submit to the Spirit.