How do you know that you are born of God?

 When a child is born to this world, you will hear the baby crying. It is a good sign for the baby to cry, it means the baby is alive. If the baby is not crying the infant could be dead. In the same way the child of God, when born of God, he cries unto God. Remember the Philippian jailor, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30) When you are born of God, you will cry unto God for repentance, and then you realized how deeply you have sinned against God. Before you were born of the blood, carnal and you had no conviction of sin. Ungodly man cannot repent but only a man who is born of God can repent. He will cry unto God.

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation. (2 Cor 7:10)

Also the newborn child will crave for pure spiritual milk. 1 Peter 2:2 - Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.

If you are born of God you will thirst for God’s word. You cannot be without God’s word. Jesus said, Matthew 4:4 ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Psalm 42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Job with all his wealth gone, all his children dead, with great pains of boils on his body, yet he said, “I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. (Job 23:12)

When a child that is born into this world, they don’t understand everything yet they trust in their parents. They cling to their parents, they get comfort from their parents, and without them they are lost. In the same way when you have a spiritual birth, you don’t understand all of the Bible as you are still growing in the Lord but you will trust in God. You will call him “abba” meaning intimate word for Father.

Romans 8: 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Now you cling to God, you have the love of Mary Magdalene, she felt miserable without Jesus, early morning she went to the tomb to see the missing Lord, when she saw him, she was overjoyed and wanted to cling to him. The true Christian who is born of God cannot be without God, God becomes his portion.

When a child his born, the friends and relatives will say, the child looks like the father or the mother or both of them, when the child is growing, the child would like to be his father or the mother. In the same way when you are born of God, you will grow into his image.

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

That image was shattered because of sin, but Jesus restored that image back again.

1 Corinthians 15:49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Colossians 3: 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Application.

Are you crying for God? Crying for his spiritual milk. Crying in your helplessness in prayer. Are you growing in the Lord? Are you becoming more and more like him? Do you love him, you cannot be without him. You desire to see him. Are you craving for the world or for God? If you love him, do you meditate upon him, do you think of him? If you know him do you glorify him? Jesus said,

Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Beloved, when you love your parents you are obedient to them. In the same way are you obedient to your heavenly Father. When you are a child of God your conversation is holy, do you have a holy conversation, pleasing to God. Yes, beloved, live like the children of God. The man who is born of God will live unto God.