In the first chapter of the Gospel of John the Bible tells us that if we receive Jesus, that is, if we believe in His name, we have the right to become children of God. How? By being “born of God.”

John 1:12-13

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. NKJV

Again in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus declares to a man named Nicodemus, a Pharisee among the Jews, that you must be “born again” to see the Kingdom of God.

John 3:1-3

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." NKJV

3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." NKJV

Jesus goes on to say in the sixth verse of chapter 3, “…that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So how do we do that? Become “born of God” or “born of the Spirit”? In Romans 10:9-10 the Apostle Paul answers that very clearly.

Romans 10:9-11

9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." NKJV

We simply have to confess (say it with our mouth) Jesus as our Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead. If we confess and believe in this way, we are saved.

Of course when we confess Him as our Lord, we are asking Him to take Lordship in our life. We are interested in pursuing His plan for our life, irrespective of whatever plans we may have had up until that time. Some of those plans may have been the very things God already had planned and some may not have been. We need to be willing to ask Him in prayer, which plans are of Him and which are not, and then set direction in life accordingly. It is no more complicated than that, but it does require nothing less.

So that explains confessing Him as Lord. But why is it essential that we believe that God raised Him, that is Jesus, from the dead? Jesus did not die for Himself; He died for us, to pay the price for our sins. In the same manner, He was raised from the dead for us, not just for His own benefit, that He might be alive again. And the death that He rose from was not just physical death, it was also spiritual death. So when He rose from both, He conquered both for you and me. We must believe that because that is exactly what He did.

Let’s put this all together. If you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you are now a child of God. You have passed from death onto life. You are “saved”, you are “born again” and your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. There is no greater gift a human being can receive than eternal life and that is actually what we receive when Jesus becomes our Lord, our Savior.

That is how we become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. In Colossians the Bible says we are translated or conveyed into His Kingdom.

Colossians 1:13-14

13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. NKJV

If you have never been born again, you have never confessed Jesus as your Lord, please do that with me now. Pray this prayer and believe in your heart these words even as you pray:

“Jesus, I thank You that You died for my sins; I thank You that You shed Your blood on the cross for me; I thank You the You bore my sickness and my shame; Jesus, I ask You this day to please come into my heart and be my Savior and be my Lord; I give my life to You; All that I am; my successes and my failures, my shortcomings and my talents and abilities, my sin and my shame; All that I am, I give to You and all that You are, I receive to me. I believe that You died and rose for me and that from this day forward, you are my Savior and Lord.”

In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.