New Birth: is accepting Jesus as our Savior and Lord- the Owner of life- repenting, changing our minds and turning from our rebellion (sin) against the Lord God, and placing our trust in Him for forgiveness. This new birth gets us into the Kingdom of Heaven. Throughout the gospel, Jesus only mentioned being born once. This new birth is the naturalization process by which we become Kingdom citizens.

The new birth makes us naturalized citizens of the Kingdom. It also naturalizes us in the sense that it returns us to our original state of authority and dominion over the earth as God intended from the start. When we become citizens of the Lord God’s Kingdom, it means that we voluntarily align ourselves with a spiritual government and a country, embracing its language, laws, ideals, and especially its standards. It is not new but renewed to us.

The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, died on the cross, and rose from the dead to put a ring of sonship on everyone’s finger if we accept this new birth. This brings us back into fellowship with our Father so that we might assume our rightful places as children and as citizens in His Kingdom. For many of us, taking that step will require first a transformation from the slavery mentality mindset. (Read Romans 12:1-2)

Even the ambassador Paul was addressing believers- people who had their faith and trust in King Jesus as Savior and Lord- who still needed to undergo a change in their mindset. Although they were Kingdom citizens, they were still caught up in a slave mentality. They were thinking like slaves. We need to consider this truth very carefully. It is possible for an individual to be reborn of the spirit, yet not be converted. (Free in circumstance, but not delivered in conscious). This is a Kingdom concept. In order to conduct themselves and behave like royalty. (Read John 3)

Salvation takes place instantly. It is a spiritual transition in which disobedience is cleansed by the blood of Jesus as we trust Him in faith. Conversion (to change in form, character, or function), on the other hand, can take a lifetime, as we learn to think, live, and act as children of the Lord God. It is a deliberate and ongoing process. Our soul- mind, will, and emotions- must be converted. We desperately need to get our bodies under the control of the Holy Spirit, in order to enjoy the benefits that come with Kingdom.

I find it very important that we learn to manage our body (in terms of our behavior and self-control) and get it in order because it is our legal house and the temple of God. If we lose it, we can’t do anything else here on earth. We can’t serve the Lord God effectively if we are addicted to sex, tobacco, drugs, or alcohol. We can’t fulfill our potential if, by the age of thirty, we are too sick and have cancer-ridden lungs. The Lord can’t bless us the way He intended if we are weak and sick from abusing some kind of mind-altering substance. We cannot be prisoners of addiction and fulfill God’s purpose for our lives. We become ineffective in speaking the King’s message.

The Ambassador Paul made it very clear that we need to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”. What does he mean by this? His point is this: Even though as believers, we have been born again through the spirit, we still have a mental defect. We have the Holy Spirit, but not the mind of the Holy Spirit. We have to be taught how to think. That only comes through reading and studying the Word of God’s Constitution of Heaven, which is the Holy Bible.

The Greek word meta morpho (from which comes the English word metamorphosis) literally means, to make a complete and total turn or change. The transformation that the ambassador Paul speaks about here involves a complete revolution of our mentality or mindset.