Amen.

Being born again is total surrender to Christ. Understanding even your best without Christ is filthy rags, and longing for Christ to change you into His image.

You can read my testimony under Leigh’s pinned comment. It might help explain why you feel the disconnect. Religion will always disconnect you from God. Jesus nailed the ordinances against us to the cross. He does not give us ordinances (rules to follow for salvation). I grew up with religion, not knowing God’s unconditional love because religion will ALWAYS make God’s love conditional, thereby making salvation conditional. But God actually describes salvation as a free gift, which by definition makes salvation unconditional (Ephesians 2:4-10; Romans 5:18).

Thanks for sharing your very precious testimony. Jesus said.. John 3:3 (KJV 1900): 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. We will not be able to "see" the kingdom until we are born again because we perceive it with spiritual eyes. Until we are born again, the spirit is disconnected or "dead" to God. We can't "see". When God recreates our spirit, everything becomes new because our "eyes" are open. Ephesians 1:18 (KJV 1900): 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, Being born again is not about praying a prayer, but being truly broken over our sins and failure and our lostness. We deserve only hell. But Jesus became sin for us. He carried our burden and our shame. Isaiah 53:5 (KJV 1900): 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed. Repentance is not the confession of sins, rather it is returning back to God. My favorite illustration is the parable of the lost son in Luke 15. Before I could be saved, I had to learn what Jesus has done for me from a study of Romans 4. Jesus takes our sins and he gives us His righteousness in exchange. One night I was watching a sermon or testimony on TV and everything hit me then and I broke down and gave my heart to the Lord and asked Him to save me. Next day everything was new. Psalm 34:18 (KJV 1900): 18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKi9dZWDh6x-nKMsi=jng4IFRdbY4UQdA4

A person knows that they are born again because every day and every minute of their life, they want more and more of God. It does not stop with being born again, that is the start.

True. What if over time it seems to wane? Less Bible reading, etc? ​@@PsalmsFiftyOne-10-12

Go to him in prayer and surrender. Give him your life confess with your mouth, read scripture back to him only he can send you the holy spirit. He doesn't refuse any who comes to him. I spent about an hour confessing, I spoke scripture back to him. I ugly cried 😂 but when I had finally come to the end of anything I had to say I sat back on my sofa it was about 15 minutes and I then felt God move. He pulled all pain, loneliness, grief from my heart and I felt the holy spirit pour into me. I felt surrounded by his love and safety. I knew he had accepted me. My family thinks I'm nuts but oh well. You need to know jesus wouldn't lie when he said these things. Praying for you

Wow 😊

Pray the rosary every day. Our Blessed Mother never fails to lead us to her Son.❤

God reached out to me using an angel when I was 6. I was tempted at the age of 1, but with a mature mind in a spiritual realm. I did not pass the temptation. I was not perfect at controlling my being while in the practices with God and angels prior to entering this world. I failed during the practices many times, however the angels told me that all I needed to do was pass a particular practice test once and that was enough. The reason only once is enough is because God knows what is in a person's heart (innermost needs and desires) and will do all the "heavy-lifting" for us. Reading the quotes from The Messiah to the world, God's Perfect Son (Proverbs 30:4), is more powerful than any magic or any science there is or will ever be.

I was born saved, told at 6 years old that God took my salvation away & was going to send me to hell for my sins if I did not prove to God I was choosing to go to heaven by repenting from my sins, & living a holy life because I was too old now to use faith in Jesus as an excuse to get to heaven. I had to genuinely prove my faith was in Jesus by keeping all of His commands (not sure why I bothered keeping both eyes & hands, apparently that’s the only time Jesus was not being serious). Spent the next 31 years of my life trying to prove to God daily that I’m choosing heaven by living as holy as I can, taking up my cross daily, & obeying Jesus, being terrified that He will send me to hell if I didn’t prove to Him my faith is genuine. Supposedly this was “the fear of God” which was supposed to keep me on the narrow path. Towards the end of those 31 years I decided to do a quick Google search “how is a Muslim saved” & this is the moment I realized I had been a practicing Muslim “in the name of Jesus” since the gospel was ripped away from me at 6 years old & replaced with a fear of going to hell to modify my behavior to prove to God I am worthy of heaven, which is the foundation of Islam, who speak very highly of the teachings of Jesus. That began my journey into researching the different kinds of soteriology within Christianity. This is when I discovered Calvinism, which teaches salvation as a work of God accomplished by Jesus alone. The only problem was God did not choose to save everyone & therefore Jesus did not die for the sins of every human, but only the humans He hand picked for salvation before the foundation of the world. It sounded like good news for me since it appeared that God chose to give me faith, but then there were all of these tests I had to constantly pass to know whether or not the faith God had given me was genuine & not just “mental ascent.” So this actually led to moments of anxiety (when I sinned) & moments of arrogance (when I did not sin). So a back & forth between being condemned & condemning others. Still did not have peace & realized quickly this wasn’t bearing fruit & wondered why Jesus would tell me to love even my own enemies when He did not lay down His own life for His enemies (which is apparently the greatest love). So that’s when I discovered “free grace” which at the time made a lot of sense because now God loves everyone, died for all of our sins & saved us all by grace…IF we believe on Jesus & put NO confidence in our works. So now here we go again trying to prove my faith is genuinely 100% in Jesus & not at all in myself. Sounds like it would be easy & freeing & give me peace. But, once again, this method still ends with me being arrogant & condemning all those Christians who are “works trusters.” And so the endless war within Christianity on “genuine faith” vs “dead faith” continues. So we have works Pharisees on 1 side & grace Pharisees on the other side both condemning 1 another & telling each other they are going to hell. This is when it hit me: all Christians have this 1 theme in common that they all agree on: everyone is going to hell except for the people who believe 100% the way they believe. What would happen if you took hell completely out of the picture? Well, all of the soteriology arguments within Christianity would cease. You would have peace. No more Christians divided against Christians. Needless to say, this is what led me to Christian Universalism. Salvation is a complete work of God accomplished by Jesus Christ alone & because God loves everyone He wants everyone saved & chose us all in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world to be saved. Now all boasting is removed. All condemnation is removed. Jesus alone is glorified as Savior. Truly the Prince of Peace, “whom you shall call Jesus for HE shall save His people from their sins.” So yes, Calvinists got half of it right (Jesus alone saves us), Arminians got the other half right (God wants all to be saved), & the Universalists made peace between the 2 (Jesus alone saves us, God wants all to be saved, therefore Jesus does the will of the Father & saves us all, each in his own order, to be testified in due time). Yes, the first will be last & the last will be first. There will be the least of these & the greatest of these, but there is only 1 name under heaven by which every family is named & only 1 name under heaven by which men MUST be saved. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven & do not boast against one another for the branches do not support the Root but the Root supports the branches. I beg you dear brothers & sisters in the faith, remain in God’s kindness. For it is the kindness of God that leads men to repentance. Give grace to the hearers for faith comes by hearing the Word of God, the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of peace. For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, & a sound mind. Therefore as far as it depends on you, be at peace with every man. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the meek, the lowly, the gentle, as Christ our King has demonstrated in His great love for us. So we must love one another, not counting trespasses against each other. For we have known & believed the testimony of Jesus, & known & believed God’s love for us. Give the world this love, this peace, this good news, for perfect love casts out fear. The gospel casts out fear. Jesus casts out fear. “Through One Man’s righteous act the free gift came to ALL MEN, resulting in justification of life.” - Romans 5:18 “Therefore putting away lying, let each one speak truth with his NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.” - Ephesians 4:25 “All people shall see Salvation.” - Luke 3:6 “For there is no distinction between Jew & Greek, for the same Lord over ALL is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” - Romans 10:12-13 “One God & Father of all, who is above all, & through all, & in all.” - Ephesians 4:6 “God desires all men to be saved & to come to the knowledge of TRUTH.” - 1 Timothy 2:4

About 30. Raised in a Christian house, walked away from church about 15. God knew what he was doing, glad he found me.

I got saved when I was a child but then I backslid terribly in my teenage years, but God brought me back when I was 18 and I've been on fire ever since! I am so thankful to God that he opened my eyes to his grace and mercy.

Thank you so much for the encouragement! God bless you! 😊🙏

Thank you 🙌 Praise God!

Thank you so much for the encouragement! Yes, I agree. We need to give God the praise for what He's done in our lives by sharing our stories + the Gospel with others! :) God bless you!

Thank you so much for sharing Jakaylah. Anxiety can really feel crippling! It is hard for others to understand, when they don't have the same struggle. Have you seen a doctor to explain what is happening? Sometimes anxiety stems from hormonal or other health imbalances or traumas. Sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's spiritual, sometimes it's a combination of these. My mom actually had very similar feelings of extreme panic about driving a car when she began menopause. I will pray that the Lord shows you the root cause and will guide you towards His peace and fullness, in Jesus name. <3 God bless you!

Thank you for your reply! I am journeying towards that video, Lord willing. I've just posted a testimony about Jesus healing my mind: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aaKymXmqjLB7aqc More testimonies will be added to my channel soon! :) www.youtube.com/@RedeemingLeigh God bless you!

@RedeemingLeigh Thank you Leigh for answering back. Looking forward to hearing your salvation testimony! Have a wonderful day!

@@JoshuaPennington-s8m You too! :)

Good morning! Salvation Testimony is here. It took me a while :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHLZoaFpiMeYjMUsi=fRApxjaYcBSrGo8- God bless you!

Thank you for sharing! 😊