"Better Than Life!"

"Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee." (Psalms 63:3) There is something else about the experience of being born again, that there is absolutely no way to experience any part of it without actually being truly born again. Any hope, or joy, or peace, anything that is experienced with new life, it is all so not of you, it is completely of God! In the opening verses of John, he gives a little testimony of who Jesus was, and what He came for, and in verses 12-13 he explains this born again experience as such: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." In 2 Corinthians 6:17-18, Paul describes is as such: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given us the ministry of reconciliation." It is really hard to describe to people that they are dead, spiritually dead; but man oh man, you sure wish you could somehow show them a little taste of what life in Christ is like, just a little taste of the truth. Paul felt this in his heart towards his unsaved countryman, as he explains in Romans 9:1-5, saying, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pettaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." When you think about it, Abraham never really had a home to speak of, because this life was not the promise that he looked for, "for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God". (Hebrews 11:10) There is really no other way to describe it, other than to say that it is not of this world...
"See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him. Dear friends, we are already God's children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as He is pure." (1 John 3:1-3)