There are three steps to entering God’s family listed in John 1:11-13, and they are simple:
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Step 1 is to believe.
Believe that Jesus Christ came into the world (see John 1:14-18); that He entered time and space by invading it from eternity, and that He did this to bring us to God. This is exactly what His own people, who saw Him in the first century did not accept (receive) about Him. They did not believe or receive Him when they saw Him because He did not “fit their mold.” He was not what they wanted. But God is never “what we want.” He is who he IS, and we cannot remake Him in our image–same with His Son.
Step 2 is to receive.
To receive Jesus Christ meant (originally) to receive Him as the Messiah, the Christ who was to come. Today, it means much the same, except that in addition to receiving Him as Messiah, we now know that “Christ died (to pay) for our sins according the Scriptures, that He was raised from the dead, that He ascended to Heaven, where He now lives with His Father, and that He sent forth His Holy Spirit, so that He can live by His Spirit in all who open their hearts to Him, who receive Him spiritually in prayer. Yes, it’s mysterious, but it works. What you do is beyond easy–you pray, and invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior and to enter your life. Then, you become…
Step 3: Become.
John says that once you have received Jesus Christ, you have the right to become a child of God–meaning, of course, that you do become God’s child, and enter His family, and that you are “born…of God.” This is what people mean when they talk about being a “born-again Christian”–the person who is “born again” literally has God’s own life and Spirit dwelling in him. He is forgiven of all his sins; he is brought into a full relationship with God, who is now his Father; he has a completely new life with God, which begins at the moment he receives Jesus Christ, and never ends–it “wells up into life eternal,” as Jesus said in another context.
