"Ive recited the Sinners Prayer and asked Jesus to come into my heart, but it seems like nothing happened..."

Pastor Jim Verkest, Mosinee United Methodist Church

The term born again is usually associated with words Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:3. Jesus is teaching Nicodemus the truth that we are all born of the water (from inside the mothers womb), but we also need to have a spiritual birth. This spiritual birth comes through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enters our hearts and opens up the way to eternal life in Christ. This process, however, as Jesus tells us in John 3:8, cant always be explained in people because the Spirit chooses to move in people in different ways and in different timeframes.

Some people experience what I call a Damascus Road experience. Like Paul, there is a powerful and immediate experience of Christ that leaves no doubt in the mind of the person that the Holy Spirit has touched their heart and their life. This is a born again moment that usually results in a person becoming instantly transformed spiritually. Pauls life was never the same again after his experience on the Damascus Road. He knew clearly Christs call on his life and that he must lay all other things aside to serve the Risen Christ.

For most people, however, there is no clear Damascus Road experience. Their life of faith, their regeneration, comes in increments, over time. Its a long labor rather than a sudden birth.

I can sympathize with people who go through the steps of conversion and do not experience a sudden awareness of being born again. Th ...