Before becoming a believer in Jesus Christ, I didn’t understand the meaning of being “born again”. Much like Nicodemus, the Pharisee, it was very confusing to me. Another term used in the Christian world was “a new creation” or “a new creature”. Just what did it mean?

It wasn’t until in my adult age that I could come to understand these terms and what they mean. Though confusing, it really is very simple. Let me explain through a simple illustration.

A businessman wanted to buy a building that was empty for months and needed a lot of repairs. Vandals came and damaged the doors, broke the windows, spray-painted graffiti on the walls and threw trash all around. The interior was in worse shape.

The property owner showed the businessman the property. The owner said that he would replace the windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damages and clean out the garbage.

“Forget the repairs,” the businessman said. “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.”

When we come to Jesus Christ, we are the old beat up building. God has a plan and wants to renovate us. He wants to improve our lives by taking the trash out of our lives and building new. We are born again and become a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 (NIV2011) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

We can try and try to renovate our lives, but our transgression will still be there. Only through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior can all things be anew. When we become a child of God, the old life is over. He makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build.