The Discipleship PathwaySample

Pathway Step Two: Deliver

My life story could be told in three parts: BC, JC, and AD.

Before Christ, I had some pretty great times but was, if I’m honest, mostly a self-centered, prideful, cynical, angry, and violent young man. I wore a uniform with shiny buttons on the outside but on the inside was hurting myself and lots of other people.

Then I met Jesus Christ. Someone I knew from a nightclub gave me a Bible, and I started to read it for myself. Then one day while I was driving to work, I heard a Christian song and realized, “It’s true! Jesus Christ really is the Son of God!” I had a vision—Jesus was on the cross, dying not just for the sins of the world but for my sins. He took the blame so I could be DELIVERED from my sinful life and live again. I felt waves of grace and mercy and love and acceptance as I was born again.

In today’s passage, we read about an exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus in which Jesus uses that phrase, saying that we all must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God.

The idea of being born again confused Nicodemus. Two thousand years later, it’s still a phrase that’s loaded by culture with a lot of negativity.

Your story may or may not be similar to mine, but if you have crossed the line of faith, you too have been born again. Your life BC is over, you have met JC, and you now get to live forever AD, filled with eternal hope no matter what happens here on earth.

Are you willing to share that story? Will you tell others about being born again, DELIVERED into a new life with a fresh chance to follow Jesus? It’s the next step on the Discipleship Pathway and might be what God uses to DELIVER someone else into new life too.