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To be born again is only the beginning of the Christian life. This itself is a great privilege that God offers to all people as an unmerited favour from Him, by paying for our sins with the death of His Son Jesus Christ. But the greatest promise from God is that we can be free from the corruption of sin in our life and be changed to become godly, partaking of His character (2Pe.1:3,4). But comparatively few Christians have heard about this, because the gospel they have heard told them only about the starting point. As a result, they remain as spiritual babies, knowing only starting level doctrines such as forgiveness of sins, going to heaven, Bible reading, prayer, etc. The Bible refers to this as only being able to drink milk and unable to eat stronger food such as meat. "For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (He.5:13,14).

Notice two things here. The first is that solid meat is referred to as the word of righteousness, and the second is that the process of eating and digesting this meat is referred to as getting our spiritual senses trained to discern good and evil. Milk doctrine tells us how God forgives our sins and clothes us with the robe of the righteousness of Christ. But meat is about actually partaking of that righteousness in our practical life. The whole purpose of salvation, in a nutshell, is to deliver us from the bondage of sin and to transform us into the likeness of Jesus. Being born again is just the beginning, and the rest of our life we are to progressively experience the transformation of our character and behaviour.

Having received forgiveness of sins as an unmerited favour from God, many Christians assume that God will do the rest of the work of transformation also without anything they have to do from their side. This is a huge mistake. Before we were born again, we walked according to our flesh with all its sinful desires. We were dead towards God. But when we are born again, God gives us a new heart and His Spirit because of which we become dead towards sin and alive towards God (Ro.6:11). Now we have a new mind that does not want to sin but wants to do the will of God. If someone does not have this mind, he is not yet born of God (1Jn.3:8). With this new mind, God expects us to make a choice whenever we are tempted, to deny ourselves and to do what God says. We have to choose between what we desire, and what God wants. That is what makes the difference between people to make one more godly than another.

This word of righteousness is not popular. People denounce it by calling it legalistic, anti-grace, etc. But what we have to do is simply to choose to do what is right in God's eyes, in every practical situation. It is not difficult to see where people will go if they are not willing to exercise their senses this way.

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