So am I now born again? This was the question of a Roma guy, after we had prayed with him a prayer of personal surrender to the Lord Jesus. He lives in one of the communities where we are working as a CHE team. Actually my colleague and I came to talk to him and his partner about the difficulties they had in their relationship; both had divorced and were now living with each other for 12 years, but it seemed as if life had gone out of their relationship.
She said she was a Christian, but she had the feeling all this time that she was doing something that God could not approve. He was no Christian, had no problem with his life partner being a believer, but he felt no need to be that too. And now they had grown apart and actually she wanted to end the relationship.
At that point I said that there were actually three problems: he would have to start taking God seriously in his life; she would have to start taking seriously her obedience to God; and together they would have to start taking seriously their relationship with each other.
When he asked what I meant with taking God seriously, I told him that there is in his heart a throne, and that currently he is sitting on it. If he truly wanted to recognize that God is God, then he would have to make the step to give this place on the throne to God, to Jesus. We read with him the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15 and we highlighted the point of return, the decision of the son to go back home, back to the Father. After some more talking we asked him if that was what he also wanted: return to the house of the Father. He said yes, and we prayed with him a prayer of surrender to Jesus, of forgiveness and of dedication to Him. And after the ‘amen’ his first question was a bit perplexed: so am I now born again? And we said: ‘Yes! Hereby you have become a child of God and have eternal life. There is joy in heaven with God and His angels when here on earth one sinner repents!’ And we were allowed to share in this heavenly joy! So this was only the third day of the year; a privilige to witness this and we look forward to how much more will come!