Regeneration: Experience of the new
The best decision one can make in life is surrendering one’s life to Jesus who is our Lord and saviour. However, it is not enough to just give your life to Jesus but you need to understand what you have become to experience the reality of the new life in Christ.
In Titus 3: 3-5, the Bible says: For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our saviour toward man appeared. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
In verse 3, the scripture shows us what was being done out of foolishness which is being devoid of spiritual understanding. When you have not given your life to Jesus, this is what the devil does to you and he deceives you that you are enjoying yourself while he knows that you are missing the right way. He may make you to be involved in fornication, stealing, drugs, and other evil deeds and deceive you that this is the way life is supposed to be. But if you read in verse 5, there is a word ‘regeneration’, which now takes place after you have given your life to Jesus.
Regeneration means a recovery of all things which you had lost before you came to the Lord. This entails that after you give your life to Christ, you should strive to get back all which you lost when you were in darkness and not only in one area. For example, you may have been dull in class before you gave your life to Jesus. After being ‘regenerated’ in Christ, God changes your level of IQ, hence you should no longer accept failure. In the same way, you are not supposed to carry curses in the regeneration since God sees you completely as a new person.
In Colossians 1: 21–22, the Bible shows us how God looks at man in the newness after salvation. It reads: And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled. In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.
As indicated in this scripture, God looks at you in this way after you have come back to Christ and have been regenerated. This is why you should not entertain a contrary picture of who you are.
