There was a man named Nicodemus who was one of the Pharisees. He was an important Jewish leader. One night Nicodemus came to Jesus. He said "Teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one can do the miracles you do, unless God is with him."
   Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. Unless one is born again, he cannot be in God's kingdom."
   Nicodemus said, "But if a man is already old, how can he be born again? He cannot enter his mother's body again. So how can he be born a second time?"
   But Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. Unless one is born from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter God's kingdom. A person's body is born from his human parents. But a person's spiritual life is born from the Spirit. Don't be surprised when I tell you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it likes, you can hear the sound of it but you have no idea where it comes from or where it goes. Nor can you tell how a man is born by the wind of the Spirit."
   Once you were under God's curse, doomed forever for your sins. You went along with the crowd and were just like all the others, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air, who is at work right now in the hearts of those who are against the Lord. All of us used to be just as they are, our lives expressing the evil within us, doing every wicked thing that our passions or our evil thoughts might lead us into. We started out bad, being born with evil natures, and were under God's anger just like everyone else. But God's mercy is so abundant, and His love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience He brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.
   Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God . . . Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

Taken from Jn. 3, Eph. 2, I Jn. 5, II Cor. 5, I Pt. 1, The Everyday Bible, The Phillips Translation, The Living Bible, Today's English Version and The New International Version.
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