There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewis religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he cam to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent You to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with You.”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
“What do You mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back to his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit give birth to spiritual life. So don’ be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it its going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
Jesus replied, “Yo are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe Me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possible believe Me when I tell you about heavenly things?. No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has dome down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life.”
“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the wold not to judge the wold, but to save the world through Him.”
“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions are evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right and come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” (vv. 1-21, NLT)