I have struggled for years in understanding the nature of regeneration in the conversion process of Christianity. I think maybe I look too much to personal experience and not enough at the facts sometimes, nevertheless, I struggle with understanding. So here is what I have come up with. My thoughts on this issue are evolving, so there will be some tweaking and refining, but this is basically it.
When we become Christians, a sort of mini miracle happens. We are baptized in water and we are raised up as new creations in Christ. But what all happens in that water? Is there some mystical effect from it? Does it wash away sins?
My answer is that it does not. The baptism in water is symbolic of the actual process. All in one moment and as we go down into the water, we receive at the same time the baptism of the Holy Spirit and forgiveness of sin. Holy Spirit releases our spirits and enables us to resist what we could not resist before and in that way, we are changed. A new will power is enabled within us by Holy Spirit and we are enabled to stand. This power increases as we walk with Christ and learn from His word. It requires our cooperation, but it works every time it is tried.
So what exactly is being changed? Is it the desire to sin? Is it just behavior? What is it?
We know from Jesus that the things that make a man unclean do not come from outside the body or the human spirit. The things that make one unclean come from the heart. We also know that even the contemplation of sin....hating your neighbor....lusting after your neighbor and so on can be just as sinful as the actual behaviors of murder and sexual immorality if contemplated for any length of time.
The process, however, has to stop somewhere and so I am thinking that we begin with behavior modification, through use of the will power that is supplied by the Holy Spirit and abstain from the sins we are tempted with. The modification ultimately starves the desire to the point that it dies in the heart and is no longer a issue.
Wonderful theory huh? But does it work in practice? As a somewhat lighthearted example of this, consider the self destructive habit of smoking? Many who finally manage to quit become virulent "anti smoking Zealots". They have been changed, first by the death of the habit and then by the death of the desire. They are free and they want to set others free.
Why can it not work that way with sin? I would suggest that it does. It is a process that takes time and the desire to sin does not always die right away after the cessation of the practice. It continues in the human heart as a longing. There is in some ways a morning process that goes on. The sin is missed like an old friend. It is withdrawal from addiction in the truest sense. Only the stubbornness of our reborn spirits empowered by the Holy Spirit will get us through that and it may take some time. Sorrow for sin and a desire to obey Christ are at the heart of it. If these things are not in place, no change of heart will occur and the desire to sin will torture the Christian. Paul says in II Corinthians 7:10
10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death
So here is my advice to you. Pray with God through His Holy Spirit for the will power to change what ever sinful behavior it is that needs to change. Stop the behavior. Starve the unclean desire of the heart and so die to your sins and live for Christ.
Titus 3:3-7
3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs [a]according to the hope of eternal life.
