John 3:4 (NIV) “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Just as Nicodemus suspected, going in for a second term in our mother’s womb wasn’t the answer.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say we could go back and get born again as a human baby. All we would end up with was us still being a citizen of the nation or kingdom where we were born and a member of the same human family. It wouldn’t change our citizenship, our humanity, or family ties. Obviously, therefore, this is going to be something different than a natural birth.

John 3:5 Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. God is a Spirit. Because we only understand human bodies, it is difficult for us to realize that we are eternal beings ourselves. We live in a body; but, when that body dies and decays, that doesn’t have any effect on us being able to continue to exist.

When Jesus talked about people dying, He frequently said they were sleeping. Dying isn’t ceasing to exist; dying only means separation. When we die, we are just being separated from our body. We, as eternal beings, continue to live on somewhere else. That continuing to live somewhere else is the thing that needs to concern you.

Just because bodies only last for a short period of time doesn’t mean that people do. You may have thought there wasn’t any life after death; or, it may have been something you haven’t spent much time thinking about. God is using your struggles with a life-problem to help you start considering an eternally important issue. If you are going to spend eternity with God, you will have to join His family and Kingdom now; you will NOT be able to make that decision after you die.

Plus, a lot of tremendous benefits come from making that decision now. Your life brings you a lot of suffering that Jesus can and will help you with just as soon as you are born into His family and thereby made a citizen of His Kingdom. He is currently trying to do some special things for you now so you will want to spend eternity with Him later.

The question is, what does all this discussion about new birth and Kingdom citizens have to do with your issue with marriage? And the answer is, we aren’t able to get help with our problems until our relationship with our heavenly Father has been ESTABLISHED; and, Jesus is trying to explain this to Nicodemus and to you.

Let’s say you move into a new house and forget to call the electric company and ESTABLISH an account with them. Electricity would be available out at the street where you live. But, your house wouldn’t be connected to the electric service so you would be able to have electricity.

That is what we are talking about here. You MUST be born again in order to ESTABLISH a relationship with God and Him become YOUR heavenly Father. The great provisions of God are available; but, a lot of people aren’t connected to them THROUGH being born again.

If you had a son, you would allow him to come into your house and eat your food, use one of your bedrooms, and move freely through your house. But, if some strange boy came in and tried to take advantage of these privileges, you would be upset. There would be no relationship ESTABLISHED and he would be a stranger to you; he would be trespassing. But, if that strange boy did what it took to build a relationship with you and you finally adopted him into your family, he would gain all the rights and privileges of a son.