Born Anew – A New Beginning

God’s plan for you wasn’t that and your clock kept ticking. The world around us doesn’t give much importance to the moment of our conception but we know that your life began then and not when you popped out of your mother’s womb. In reality, it was back then when you were conceived your clock started ticking. Also to remember is that even though you started being mischievous when you were 3 years old, which in common parlance can be recorded as a sin, none of that gets recorded on your book of accounts until you cross your ‘age of reason’. Age of reason usually starts from around 6-8 years of age. You may be wondering where would all those sins that you committed before you crossed your age of reason be recorded if not in your book. No, you are wrong if you think it just vanishes because you were innocent and so ignorant. Yes, you are right if you guessed that it’ll be recorded in bold letters in your guardian’s book of accounts. Guardians are generally your parents if you weren’t brought up as an orphan. If so, it’ll be the person who cared for the child up until the age of reason. 

From the very moment you cross the age of reason each of your sins gets recorded in your book of accounts be it a sin of commission or omission, in your thought, mind, imagination, or intellect using the input received through your eye, ear, nose, tongue, or skin. It could even be an uncharitable word uttered or a gesture or action using your hand or for that matter any part of your body directly or indirectly. I know for sure that you’ll have a bunch of objections or questions here but I do not want to get into any of that preemptively until you bring it up one by one. Moving on, these sins will be categorised as personal sins.

You had an option of the ‘sacrament of baptism’ to nullify or cancel your original sin but what about your ‘personal’ sins? You are required to do that cleaning yourself. If you think you have no clue about how to get that done then I should ask you to wake up from your sleep and sit straight before making a list of all your ‘personal’ sins and ask yourself if you can sincerely regret doing any of those sins. If yes, then you must repent for each one of these. Now jump out of your bed and start making amendments for each sin of commission or omission one after the other. Most times we tend to use our unjust scales to measure the quantity and quality of the necessary reparation. Remember that such acts of restitution are worthless, if not a waste of time. Ensure that you surpass the expectations and do more than just using the measure of an appropriate just scale when you attempt to expiate for each of your grave sins. How? Look straight at the life of the One who came down from Heaven to showcase the crystal clear answer to you. He lived amongst you for 33 years in this world to show you how you are supposed to live at every moment in life. That man’s life is a reference case for us to clarify if we have any doubts on which step to take or what kind of expiation is adequate for a certain kind of sin.

Having said all that if you are now wondering as to why we are even talking about all this then let’s go back to where and why we started with this. When you were first ‘Born into Life’ or born into the ‘Kingdom of God’ your book of accounts displayed zero entries as in a clean page in a clean book (Baptism). Now if you have any intention to get your accounts settled before your ticking clock stops then you are expected to first nullify your debt account (sins) by making the best use of your expiation account at the earliest. As we both know, you are 30 years old already and by now your system (body, mind, and soul) is tuned to casually add at least 150 points to your debt account every single day. On any given normal work day, you have to ensure that your expiation account has to be pumped in constantly with enough points to try and reduce the millions accumulated in your debt account as of date. Over and above that, we like it or not, your daily average accumulation rate is 150+ points (I mean, 150+ sins added). Blame it on your system configuration (constitution of your personality) or whoever you may please, but the reality is simply this. One silly trick a few around us play is to just act as if this is not how the book of accounts gets recorded (protestants) while a few others would happily say that there isn’t any such book of accounts to even start with (atheists). All said and done, the entry into the ‘Life’ (Kingdom of God) will only happen if you nullify your debt account by your own efforts while your clock is allowed to tick or after that while you sit and wait in the purgatory hoping that someone else on earth will trade some of their hard-earned points for your sake. Either way the only way into the ‘Kingdom of God’ is if and after you ensure that your book of accounts is as clean as it was at the moment you were born.

Do you feel like asking me now if that is a practically viable option or even a possibility in today’s world? A similar question was once asked by a bearded grey-haired pharisee named Nicodemus during a cold night. That question was directed to a young golden-haired man who was then in his early thirties. The response was straight and clear in a majestic voice, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” † Even after 2000 years since that day we aren’t yet sure how many of us understand what that young man meant.