A Modern Day Nicodemus

Jesus answered Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."  

John 3:3

As I arrived, it was like any other funeral...women by the fire cooking, some women gathering stones, men continuing to dig the grave, and children starting to slow down and fade into the few buildings as the sun set on the horizon.  As darkness settled in, we gathered under the tent to begin the night vigil.  Singing and sharing continued all through the night, and when it was my turn to get up and preach, the Spirit took over.  I don’t know how long I shared, but the words were not my own but what God put on my heart.  I shared that those who are born again through Christ will never die a spiritual death, even though they die physically.  And I prayed that God would use that to draw people to new & eternal life in Him. 
As I finished preaching, I went out towards where they were continuing to dig the grave.  Many times the men working on the digging don’t ever make it inside the tent to the singing and preaching.  They feign working and digging, but rather are enjoying the talking and the traditional brew.  As I took my turn at the pick axe to continue digging the grave, I began to share about the holiness that God requires of those who call themselves Christians. 
*****

A few weeks later, back at the Bible college, I returned to the school after a weekend away.  There was a man there waiting for me.  He had come a couple of days before, and returned several times through the weekend while waiting for me to return, finally deciding to sleep at the gate until I returned.  He asked if he could talk to me. 

I didn’t recognize him, but he shared that he was at the funeral I had been at a few weeks prior.  As I had preached in the middle of that night, he was sitting out in the crowd.  But as I preached about the truth of Jesus Christ & our need to be born again, it didn’t settle well with him so he got up and walked out, heading back to his friends who were digging.  As I came out to help dig and started preaching again, he continued to feel unsettled.  He told me that ever since that funeral he had continued to wrestle and be anxious because he knew that he had never been born again.

He had grown up in the Jericho church, being taught that his church was the only true religion and that he was perfect and there were no imperfections in their religion.  Yet as he heard the truth about salvation in Jesus Christ - that even our best efforts amount to nothing, which is why God sent Jesus to pay the price we couldn’t pay and to give us the righteousness we could never earn - he knew he was lacking something.  And so that day he asked me how to be born again.  On the day that he was born again, he was supposed to be being ordained as a priest in the Jericho church, but instead went back to that church to tell the people there of the truth of Jesus Christ.  

*Our Swazi pastor shared this story from his life in church last Sunday...a powerful example of how God has continually worked for thousands of years to bring people to new life in Christ - working in us & through us to call His people back to Himself.