Episode 60 - When is your Spiritual Birthday

When was the moment you truly felt God in your presence ,which may have been different form your baptism day of confession

Transcript

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This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Hello and welcome back to Shine. I'm your host, Nicole Florence. And this week we started out, yes, talking a little bit about my birthday, but just the sense of renewal that it brings as we kind of reminisce, as we also think about kind of a renewal of a new year to come. And so we think about our physical birth, right? The actual day I was born, but I wanted to kind of transition to our spiritual birth. You know, for many of us, if we were asked, okay, when were you born again? I I think most of us would recall the date, the day of our actual baptism, if you were baptized, not saying you have to be, but I think that's something that we would instantly kind of recall as that physical date and time. But I think for many of us, there probably was a more significant experience of when we were truly born again. And while a baptism is that outward confession of our faith, um, we all have moments in our lives where we truly felt God's presence, where that was the moment where we knew that He was with us, where we knew that there is so much that is beyond our understanding and our explanation, and that our God was most high, most sovereign, and for many of us, we have different stories of when that happened. So I want you to take a moment and think about when you truly felt that you had that spiritual birth of when you truly felt God's presence. Now I will say for me, I I have been incredibly blessed to have many moments, and I think just being a physician, um, I have had the privilege to be in many moments and stories to see where God has moved in ways that I just cannot explain. People who have been incredibly healed, people who have transitioned in a way that I really just can't even explain those moments. Um, you know, for me personally, I know when my children were born, those were uh moments that I think were indescribable and where I truly felt um the presence of God for there to all of a sudden be this living uh beautiful, boisterous, joyful child in our midst that one minute ago was not there. I'm sure many of you have had that experience, and and even on the flip side, um, where I've had uh very close loved ones who have transitioned to the Lord, and in those moments where they are there and with us and holding our hands, when they are breathing, and we know those last breaths that even say Yahweh, um, and then they are just gone. I know personally those are very powerful moments for me when I feel God's presence. Or even those moments where we can't explain it, but we know this is where we are supposed to be. This is who we are supposed to be with. All of those moments where we truly feel God's presence. And, you know, as you read through scripture, we know that, well, Old Testament, you know, God spoke directly. Um, whether it was to Moses or the prophets, um, he would then um speak indirectly to all of us through them. But I really think that once you have that spiritual birth, that all of these moments that I just described are ways that God directly says to us, happy birthday, right? Happy spiritual birthday, because I am here, and I want you to truly feel my presence. I want you to truly feel the gift of the relationship that we have together. I need you to know that I'm here. I need you to know how special you are to me. Just in the same way I talked about my birthday yesterday, all the small, big ways that I felt special by those around me. I feel like those moments are ways that we are able to renew our spiritual birth through God, and how he reminds us of how special we are. How God acknowledges our spiritual rebirth by his presence. And while those moments don't have a specific day, right, like our birthday, they are ones that we can only uniquely share with God. And your moments may be different than my moments. Your first spiritual birthday is unique to you and may be different from mine. So my hope is as you think about that, think about that time that you truly first felt his presence, and then all the times thereafter, and in the special ways that God allows you those special moments just for you. I'm reminded of John chapter three verses three through eight, where Jesus and Nicodemus were having that conversation about this. And of course, yes, our minds don't have any true understanding because the only way that we understand birth is through physical birth. But Jesus answered in verse 5, Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit. So I hope that as we are in this season of being born again, when we are in this season of truly acknowledging our spiritual birth, that you will truly start to see and hear and feel the presence of the spirit in ways that only you truly can as a spiritual birthday, so to speak, those beautiful moments and times where God recognizes our birth through Him, through the Spirit. I encourage you, if you can, write those moments down or document them in some way, because I know there are times where maybe we don't feel as close to his presence where we maybe don't feel he is with us, even though he is, but you know how we humans are. But it's wonderful to go back and and read all those times, almost in the way that I went back and looked at all my uh birthday memories and pictures and kind of recalled this past year. Recalling those moments with him can be such a wonderful gift and a way for us to renew our relationship and our spiritual birth with him. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.