FINALLY ALIVE PB

If you're not born again this book will tell you and tell you how to be born again. Why is the church is so ineffectual, and characterised by the 'mosaic' generation as 'unchristian'? When Jesus said to Nicodemus, 'You must be born again', the devout and learned religious leader was unsure what Jesus meant. It would seem nothing has changed. Today 'born again Christians' fill churches that are seen as ineffectual at best, and even characterised by the 'mosaic' generation as 'unchristian'. The term 'born again' has been devalued both in society and in the church. Recent social studies surveys have shown that those who regard themselves as 'born again' Christians have the same tendency to divorce as people who aren't Christians at all! In these surveys, being 'born again' is defined by what people say they believe. The New Testament defines Christians very differently. 'Instead of moving from a profession of faith, to the label born again, to the worldliness of these so-called born again people, to the conclusion that the new birth does not radically change people, the New Testament moves in the other direction. It moves from the absolute certainty that the new birth radically changes people, to the observation that many professing Christians are indeed - not radically changed, to the conclusion that they are not born again. The New Testament does not defile the new birth with the worldliness of unregenerate, professing Christians. God is the great Doer in this miracle of regeneration. And he has not been silent about it. This means that he does not want us to be ignorant of what he does in the new birth. It means that knowing what he has revealed about the new birth is good for us. When Jesus said to Nicodemus, 'You must be born again' (John 3:7), he was not sharing interesting and unimportant information. He was leading him to eternal life. If he does that for you (or if he already has), then you are (or you will be) truly, invincibly, finally alive.' John Piper.