The signs you are born again reflect in the diverse choices you make, the way you choose to express yourself, and the decisions you take in your life.
When your natural reflex reaction to issues is bent towards pleasing God, even when faced with uncertainties in difficult times, it indicates a true spiritual transformation in you.
Therefore, the signs you are born again is when you take it upon yourself to please God with your lifestyle no matter what it will cost you.
Your determination to live for God is always the number one thing; you always put God first above everything else, even in the most difficult times.
Therefore, how you decide to live your life, how you choose to express yourself, the kind of words you use to express yourself, and signs of being born of the spirit are seen in these expressions.
There must be a difference in your actions before and when you become born again, it is mostly about how you live your life.
You try to please God with your words and your thoughts. The Psalmist said, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD…” (Psalm 19: 14).
Furthermore, although the yardstick to judge a truly transformed heart is not in the physical appearance, however, when you are born again, it penetrates every area of your life, including your physical appearance.
Your choices of friends, the way you dress, and down to even your posture. The transformation touches every area of your life, and the newness in you will be very glaring.
Let us go further and briefly explain what it means to be born again so that it will help us to throw more light on this topic.
What Does It Mean To Be Born Again?
Are you in that place where you are asking yourself what does it mean to be born again? To be born again means to experience the new birth in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17), which comes by being born of water, and of the spirit (John 3: 3).
The Bible say in 2 Corinthians 5: 17 (NIV), “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
This means when you come into Christ, you are regenerated, and your appetite for doing evil begins to die off. Why that for living righteously begin to come alive?
And this takes place when you put your faith in the finished work of Christ (Ephesian 2: 8 – 9), and it begins with believing in your heart, confessing with your mouth, and accepting Him as your Lord and personal Saviour.
Romans 10: 9 – 10 (NIV) “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
1. When You Become Conscious of Sin
One of the signs you are born again is when you become conscious of sin. To be conscious of sin means to be aware of what is sinful. It means to know when you are drifting away from the righteous path and falling into sin.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12: 2 (NV) you know that when you were pagans, somehow or other, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.
This text is simply talking about how unregenerated people wilfully yield themselves to be led into sin, as if they are being controlled, like a sheep taken to be slaughtered.
This implies that before you became born again, you were led and controlled by sin. You could not differentiate between what was sinful and what was not sinful because living a sinful life was a norm for you.
However, when you become born again, and regeneration takes place in you, you now have a new nature that helps you to be aware of what is sinful and what is not.
By default, you become conscious of sin, and because you are conscious of sin, you now have the willpower and the choice to say no to sin.
2. When You Acknowledge Jesus Christ As Lord And Saviour
In the world today, many people acknowledge Jesus Christ to be a good teacher who held a high moral standard, some a good prophet of God who healed the sick, performing signs and wonders.
To some, he is a historical figure, someone who existed some years ago and started a revolution against the Roman government, and he and his followers were killed.
However, when it comes to acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, it takes only one who has been regenerated by the Spirit, one who is born again, to do it.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12: 3b (NIV), “…and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” This means no one has the ability within to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour unless you are been controlled by the Holy Spirit.
And to be controlled by the Holy Spirit means you have the Holy Spirit indwelling in you, which also means you have been regenerated. You are born again. Therefore, one of the signs you are born again is when you acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
3. When You Submit Totally To The Word 0f God
To submit totally to the word of God means to understand and obey every command in the word of God. It means to bring yourself and everything about you to be under the subjection of God’s command.
However, no one can on his or her own submit totally to the word of God, no human has such power, and it is because of our sinful nature. As a sinner, you are hell-bent towards satisfying the lust in your heart and not pleasing God.
Therefore, it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to regenerate your heart and cause you to be born again; that is when you can submit totally to the word of God.
This is what makes you a Christian when you accept and submit to the word of God, and it is one of the signs you are born again
4. When You Are Always Compassionate And Merciful To Others
To be compassionate and merciful to others means to acknowledge the pain others are going through; it means to put yourself in their shoes. Hence, this will move you to go into action, and you take it as your responsibility to help them.
Being compassionate is having the feeling. Being merciful is doing something about it. This is not something anyone can do because it is one of the manifestations of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5: 22 – 23).
So it takes a regenerated person who is born again to have such the ability to be always compassionate and merciful. Yes, an unregenerated person can be compassionate and merciful sometimes and to some people, but it will not be always.
Because an unregenerated human nature is selfish and does not care about others but himself. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone who is not born again to always be compassionate and merciful to others.
Hence, if you are always compassionate and merciful to others, it is a manifestation of one of the signs you are born again.
5. When You Hunger To Know God More
To hunger to know God more is one of the signs you are born again. To hunger to know God more is to have a strong desire and craving for deep knowledge about Him.
This hunger is almost never satisfied because every ounce of satisfaction cracks open a much greater hunger to know more. So it continues all through the lifetime of a believer in Christ.
The desire and hunger to know God is not normal to the natural unregenerated man because he loves the world and hates everything about God. Part of his fallen condition is to hate God and to distance himself from God.
However, the desire to know God is a gift, it is part of what comes with the gift of salvation, and hence you can only have the hunger and desire to know God more when you are born again.
When you are born again, Christ comes alive in you and changes everything about you. Your old desires and passions die off, and Christ’s passion for the Holy Spirit is kindled in you, and you begin to desire to know God more.
6. When You Are Quick To Forgive
Having the ability to be quick to forgive is something that is peculiar to those who are truly born again. Hence, it is one of the signs you are born again.
One thing about being born again is recognizing the fact that you were once a sinner, one who hated God and loved to sin; hence, you made many mistakes. However, God forgave you and showed you mercy.
Therefore, when you relate with others, you are quick to forgive when you are hurt because you know God has forgiven you. You recognize the fact that you have been forgiven by God, so you are quick to forgive anyone who hurts you.
Jesus taught this in the Lord’s Prayer when He said in Matthew 6: 12 (NIV), “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
In addition, Jesus Christ further said, “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6: 15 NIV). Therefore, because a born-again has been forgiven, forgiving others comes easily.
7. When You Exercise Patience In Your Dealings With Others
Patience is a virtue, and it requires a lot of strength, courage, and determination. It is a great deal of hard work; in fact, it can be very frustrating to exercise patience most times.
In Galatians 5: 22 – 23, patience is listed as part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and this means we have patience as part of the Christian virtue.
Therefore, when dealing with people, we try to be patient with them, seeing their weaknesses and having in mind that we could have been like them or maybe worse if not for the grace of God.
This is because we know how patient God has been in dealing with us. We likewise exercise patience in dealing with others with the aim of winning them over to God.
The ability to exercise patience when dealing with people is a virtue that is lacking in today’s world, and it is one of the signs you are born again.
8. When You Have A Sacrificial Spirit
To sacrifice means being willing to let go of something for a greater purpose other than yourself. So to have a sacrificial spirit means having the kind of mindset that is always willing to let go of things selflessly for a greater purpose.
Consider Christ as the best example; the Bible says He was rich but became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 2: 9). In addition, in 2 Peter 2: 6 – 8, it says though He is equal with God, but He took the image of a servant so that He will die on the cross.
Christ sacrificed everything about Himself, including His life, for the greater good. Therefore, He is a perfect example of having a sacrificial Spirit. Today, Christ’s spirit lives in believers, and He has given us the power to be like Him.
Hence, we have the sacrificial nature of Christ, and this is what makes it easy for us to willingly sacrifice things, even to those we don’t know. So when you possess the ability to have a sacrificial spirit like Christ, it is part of the signs you are born again.
9. When You Hate Sin
To hate sin is one of the signs you are born again. The Bible says in Psalms 97: 10 (NIV), “Let those who love the LORD hate evil…”
To hate sin does not mean you should hate the person who commits it, but rather it means to detest and feel disgusted by any actions that disobey and goes against the commandments of God.
You hate any act that goes contrary to God’s command. You hate the fact that you get to fall into sin every now and then. Hence you wrestle and fight with it. You try to do away with anything that will cause you to fall into sin.
Just like what Jesus said in Matthew 5: 29 – 30 (NIV), If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
And if your right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
This does not mean one should amputate his body parts, but it is telling us that you should be ready to let go of anything that will cause you to sin because you hate sin.
10. When You Love Righteousness
Righteousness means right living; in the Biblical context, it means to be in the right stance with God. So to love righteousness means to love engaging in any activity that is in line with the commandment of God.
The unregenerated natural man hates everything that is righteous because he does not know God and does not want to know God.
However, since God is the standard of righteousness, he hates every act that aligns with the commandment of God.
But the born-again regenerated person takes pleasure in pleasing God. All of his energy is focused on living for God.
How Do You Know If You Are Born Again?
As a born against the child of God, if someone asks you how you know if you are born again, then your reply should be.
How to know you are born again is when your actions and the life you live are always bent towards trying to please God. When you are born again, God becomes the centre of your life.
Just like the sun is in the centre of the ecosystem, every planet and its various moons revolve around it, and it controls their movement.
Therefore, if the sun is taken away, the whole ecosystem collapses. That is how God will be in your life when you become born again. He becomes the centre of your life, and everything about you revolves around Him.
However, it does not mean you will not fall short on some occasions. Nevertheless, have it in mind that since you are still put in a mortal body, you are not perfect. Therefore, it is certain that in one way or the other, you will fall into sin.
However, whenever you commit any sin, you feel uncomfortable, and you run back to God to confess your sins and obtain grace and mercy from Him.
Meanwhile, for un-degenerated people, living in sin is a way of life. They do not see anything wrong with their lifestyle, so they see no need to confess their sins. In addition, they cannot even live for God because they do not have the ability to.
What Are The Fruits Of Being Born Again?
If you are born again, and you want to know what are the fruits of being born again, here is an answer for you. The fruit of being born again is love, manifesting in kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires (Galatians 5: 22 – 23 NIV).
These are characteristics of being born again, and though it does not fully manifest once you get born again when you continue to submit to the word of God, its sanctifying power will sanctify you (John 17: 17).
Then you will be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God Philippians 1: 11 (NIV).”
Your ability to manifest love in diverse forms, like being kind, showing goodness to people, being faithful, gentle and endurance in your dealings with people as an expression of your faith in God, is the fruit of being born again.
Signs You Are Born Again Bible Verses
1. 1 Peter 1: 3 – 4 (NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you
2. 2 Corinthians 5: 17 (NIV) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
3. Galatians 5: 22 – 25 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
4. Galatians 3:26 – 27 (NIV) You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
5. John 3: 8 (NIV) The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
6. Rom 6: 3 – 4 (NIV) Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
7. Colossians 2:13 – 14 (NIV) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.
8. 1 Corinthians 2: 14 (NIV) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
9. Romans 10: 9 (NIV) That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 1
10. John 1: 12 (NIV) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
Conclusion
What happens when you become born again is that you are being given a new nature (2 Corinthians 5: 17). However, you have to go through the process of transformation to renew your mind (Romans 12: 1).
It is when your mind continues to renew that the signs you are born again come out, and these signs are geared towards pleasing God, and it is as a result of repentance towards Christ and faith in Christ.
Save this for later!
