Continuing from yesterday....our Gospel reading today is the rest of the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. Why do you think Nicodemus might have gone to see Jesus at night?

Who does Jesus say is responsible for enabling us to be born anew?

What do you think Nicodemus meant by his response to Jesus, in verse 9, which we looked at yesterday, when he asked, “How can this be so?”

John 3 contains the core of Christianity, Jesus revealed to Nicodemus the fact that He was the longed for Messiah not just another Prophet sent my God. John 3:16 is a verse almost every new Christian learns off by heart, the core of the gospel message....telling as it does of God’s love for us and his solution to the problem of sin and it’s consequences. This verse tends to sometimes overshadow an earlier one.

Jesus replied, “With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this: Unless you are born again, you can never get into the Kingdom of God.” - John 3:3.

Many people focus on the words ‘born again”, completely overlooking the “kingdom of God”. In fact they confuse the Kingdom of God with heaven, thinking that the two are interchangeable i.e. that no one can enter heaven without being “born again”. But is that what Jesus meant? Did he mean Heaven? Maybe but maybe not.

The Kingdom of God is not just in Heaven, Jesus often indicated that with his arrival on earth the Kingdom of God was here, the whole new society God would establish here on earth, “Christian culture”, a society where God’s will is done. A whole new view of the world as a “transformed, spiritually reborn person”, new beliefs, values, relationships, responsibilities and privileges. While we live in a fallen world, we don't need to belong to that world, we are born again into God's Kingdom and that changes Everything!

Jesus point to Nicodemus is that you can’t be part of God’s kingdom, without a spiritual re-birth. The change is so radical and deep that we actually need a whole new life in order to be able to be part of the new society. It’s like the very foundations or roots of our lives need to be dug up and replaced. Some of us need changes at a very deep level, some of those changes are instantaneous, a free gift, while others we need to be obedient and work with the Lord to achieve. The point is God’s presence in our lives changes EVERYTHING!