Most Christians don't make it full term. They opt out\aborted or miscarry their salvation before their race on earth is complete. This newsletter is about miscarrying the new birth, crowns stolen, entering heaven maimed, and losing all rewards but receiving eternal life because of faith in the work of Christ Jesus. God's mercy endures forever, and it has to be for all the premature Christians entering eternal life before God can fully form them into the image of Christ.

I'm dividing this teaching up into four sections. 1) Born of water in Egypt under oppression. 2) Leaving Egypt: The First Trimester. 3) Knowing God in the wilderness: the 2^nd trimester. 4) The 3^rd trimester: The promised land where we are fully formed in Christ.

Born of water in Egypt under oppression.

We are all born under the oppression of natural sin and the God of this world, Satan. We may be born in a free nation far away from tyranny. But inside the heart of man is the oppressive spirit of sin and death. The Pharisees proclaimed freedom under Abraham, but Jesus refuted this and said they were children of the devil in oppression. The same goes today in our Christian circles, with so many proclaiming freedoms only to go home and fall to the internal oppression of the things of this fallen world. Freedom from internal oppression is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit that is finished at death.

Many in the church, conceived and born-again in spirit, in the first trimester, are deceived and being deceived while an unrenewed mind still binds them.

Like the disciples, we want to be delivered from the oppression of government tyranny, cancel culture, bully pulpits, and the like. But God had another thing in mind. Jesus will deliver God's people from the inside out. When God delivers a soul from internal oppression, they never again choose a tyrant as their overlord. I will be their God, and they will be my people by mutual choice. Even though God first chose us even yet as we were sinners.

But when we are oppressed by the devil in the heart and flesh, even when living in a free nation, we either can't enjoy it or, worse, give it over to an outside oppressor. Israel was delivered from the oppression of Egypt but argued with Moses about returning to Egypt. Freedom is free from dominion by another. But Israel, God's firstborn, wanted the free but not the responsibility of freedom. When free is without responsibility, there is also dominion to pay, an oppressor. Jesus is the only King to set us free without forced dominion. Jesus is King over those who willfully submit and take personal responsibility.

Freedom is like a submarine going deep into the ocean. The pressure must be equal internally as it is externally, or there will be an implosion or explosion. When an internally oppressed person receives external freedom, they implode. When an externally oppressed person receives internal freedom, they will explode if not for Christ. Greater is He that is in us than what is in the world. Most people cannot tolerate the constant equalization that must take place to remain free inside and out. When Israel received deliverance from external oppression while still oppressed internally, they imploded with sin and refused personal responsibility, blaming both God and Moses for their unhappy situation.

When the first generation died in the wilderness, and the new generation went into the promised land, they, too, had not dealt with the internal oppression of the heart and flesh. As soon as they gained new freedom, they created an oppressive, rich outer environment for equalization. Instead of living water coming from their bellies, oppression flowed to the point of choosing King Saul, who would rule over the oppressed. God wanted to be their King as an earthly king always rules in oppression. Even King David, a man after the heart of God, violated individual rights by taking what he wanted, not only in wives but also in high taxes.

Oppression is embedded in the flesh, and it takes a lifetime for total freedom. Part of the punishment for Adam's fall from grace is we must carry our old dead selves until the day we die. We must put off the older man and put on the new man daily as new creations in Christ Jesus.

Choosing freedom in Christ is the answer to the internal oppression of the heart and flesh and the external oppression of the devil and the men compromised. It is a lifetime endeavor to remain internally free. It is dangerous to defraud ourselves into thinking we are free like the Pharisees in Jesus' day as covenant people in father Abraham. Jesus, in the book of Revelation, repeats this thought of thinking we are rich and have no need for anything. But instead, Jesus describes those men as naked and poor.

The true life of a Christian escaping oppression is Paul writing Romans 7-8. Oppressed by his flesh, Paul comes to desperation of sin and continual need of a Lord and Savior. Too many Christians do not have this heart. They have submitted to the oppression of the flesh for so long that they don't have the thirst for righteousness any longer. Freedom in Christ is too hard of a fight. They are neither driven to wretchedness nor the righteousness of God found in Christ. They have equalized with the world. They sin openly and then wipe their lips of the temporal joys of sin while claiming no condemnation.

The condemnation of the heart and law causes us to look for a Lord and Savior. It is condemnation that forces us to see that we cannot be our own Lord and Savior as we do not have it in us. This condemnation of the law points us to Jesus as the only hope and escape from eternal punishment. And by receiving the grace of God by faith, willing and joyfully, we bow our knee to the King of kings and Lord of lords before the Day of the Lord where every knee will bend, and every mouth will confess Jesus is Lord willing or not.

Does everyone have an opportunity to be saved? What if someone has never heard the gospel? Can they still be saved? If no man can 'will' himself to be saved or take credit or partial credit for being saved, then God must choose who is to be saved.

God wills everyone to come to the knowledge of truth in Jesus Christ. God desires no one to perish but to have everlasting life. But most will choose death because they won't come to the light to be saved.

God has placed eternity into the heart of every man. A person must oppress his internal desire to live forever to believe one ceases to exist after death. But the desire for eternal life comes out when they are threatened with death.

The world we live in is God's Womb and Garden. He has and is sowing a seed of eternal Life in Christ. But so is the enemy, seeds of eternal death. Romans 1 declares that everyone at a point in their life looks up and thinks there must be a God. There must be a divine creator. If the thoughts continue, they see the contrast between evil and good. They give thanks for the good and question why the evil.

If they continue to pursue these thoughts, they will seek to do good and give thanks like the first gentile recorded saved, Cornelius. A devout religious man whose name came up before the Lord before hearing the gospel proclaimed by Peter.

Not everyone gives thanks for life, like Cornelius. Even so, at least all the world's injustices should cause a person to seek justice from the divine and cry out. Like Israel in Egypt, they began to cry out for justice, and God responded. God responds to thanksgiving and the cries for justice.

Not everyone gets an opportunity to be born-again. Everyone gets ample opportunity to see and know there is a God. But many choose to darken their mind to the light of God and are given over to a reprobate mind to worship whatever they fancy—a god of their making.

When oppression increases, people cry out. The flesh, like Pharaoh, doesn't want to let us go to worship the one true God. The flesh desires to hold on no matter the consequences. Sometimes, the flesh cries out for mercy and promises to let the Spirit go. But the flesh quickly recovers and reneges on the promise hardened the heart.

Let my Spirit go! No, I won't let you go. When the flesh has too much time, we must provide the straw without reducing the quota to build back better. We place our flesh under oppression.

However, God allows outer and internal oppression to pressure the flesh to let us go. How much do you want to be set free? Everyone desires freedom, but few want the responsibility to maintain that freedom. The thought of many is freedom without the personal cost.

Eternal life is a gift by the grace of God in Christ. But the cost of fully receiving is losing our life, taking up our cross, and following Christ. We don't buy eternal life; we walk away from the life we had toward the one we are offered. In the beginning, this is a high cost. But as an overcomer, we count it as nothing.

It is easy to become born-again, and it happens more than we think—no one permitted to be born of the flesh. It was our parents' choice. I asked my mother. She said not only did I not help, but I made it more difficult than needed. The same is being born-again of the Spirit. We must be willing to be born-again, but we can't make it happen. Only God can recreate a person as born-again. It is a gift of grace; we can only create difficulty.

Leaving Egypt: The 1^st trimester

Conception must happen before a person can be born again. God takes notice when a person looks to the heavens and gives thanks. When a person seeks to do good, God takes notice. When a person cries out for help, God takes notice. God looks at the heart and sees repentance from afar like the prodigal son before any outer signs are given.

God sends his messengers to sow a word of new beginnings. Unless a preacher is sent, how will the people looking to the heavens, giving thanks, know their redemption draws nigh? How will those who cry out for justice, understanding that it is not in them, going to hear that Jesus came to make all things new?

God loved us while we were yet sinners. He saw the possibility of a seed sown and a new life being born again. Even as we were wailing in the darkness, dying with the cancer of sin with no hope, the Holy Spirit overshadowed our womb with the favor of grace.

Just as the Holy Spirit shadowed Mary, the mother of Jesus, to impregnate her with an incorruptible seed, so is the Holy Spirit hovering over us in our soulish oppression. The angel said to Mary that God favored her. How did Mary get favored by God? Like Mary, we can ponder God's words that invoke His favor.

Mary asked how can this be? The disciples of Jesus asked how a man could be saved. With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Never has a man been saved by his will. God chose us; we didn't choose Him any more than we chose the mother who gave us birth.

Our will and choice come after we are healed, told to pick up our mat and walk. Once born-again, are we going to walk after Jesus? Ten lepers were cured, but only one returned to give thanks and worship. Like Lazarus, we were called out of our grave of sin and death. Now, it is our choice to sit and eat with the Lord or keep Him out, knocking at the door of our hearts.

If born-again is the end goal of your doctrine, like much of the lackadaisical church, then you are uncomfortable about now. Are you uncomfortable because? I said it is simple to be born-again; it is God's choice, not ours, and we cannot add anything to the new birth. Or are you uncomfortable because of the willingness or lack to become His disciple? No one can decide to follow Christ while still dead in the darkness of sin. We must be brought to the light first.

The born-again experience is of God's chosen, not us. It is the starting point of a new creation in Christ Jesus. Jesus told Nicodemus one must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. We are one-third born again—a gift from God. If we want to enter the kingdom of God, we must grow up in our faith and allow God to continue forming us into Christ's image while we are still here through the entire pregnancy. Many choose to abort the new birth. They want the savior but not the Lordship. And Jesus will not save anyone who does not bow their knee and confess Him Lord in word followed by obedience. Obedience, too, is in faith so that it can be by grace.

Read 1 Corinthians 10.

Leaving Egypt, the birth pains of a new nation, there is a breaking of blood and water: the death of the firstborns of Egypt, the firstborn of God, Israel, walking through the Red Sea, and the baptism of Moses. After the water baptism there is a celebration of joy, and the pains of labor are soon forgotten.

The blood of Jesus, the begotten Son of God, makes it possible, and a water baptism shows we died with Christ and are raised with Christ. A stronghold of God, one-third born again, in a rebellious world, ready to enter the second trimester of being fully born-again. And like the parable of the sower we received it with joy, at least until we enter the wilderness with all the trials.

Not only are we born-again by grace through faith with no personal effort, but we must also continue in the same grace by faith. We cannot help in our flesh less we cause a breach. It is Jesus who is giving birth, not us.

Jesus told Nicodemus that if you don't understand the natural, how will you ever understand the spiritual? I call this: heads we win, tails we lose.

A baby must be born headfirst, not tail first. The crown of the head must exit before the tail. If the baby is misaligned in the womb, the doctor must work to get it corrected before the mother gives birth. It is good that Jesus came as the great physician because most of us are misaligned and trying to come out tail first. This whole world has been turned upside down.

The Lord has repeatedly corrected me, telling me not to judge before it is time. I didn't understand the trimester of being born again. I had a born-again experience that was evident to everyone. I thought people who didn't have the zeal in which I was born-again hadn't been born-again. But now I know there are many troubled pregnancies in our churches. Born-again but in danger of abortion, a breached birth, or entering eternal life maimed. It is the church's job to correct the position of those in danger of tails over heads like Paul did with the church in Galicia and the Hebrews.

We are not our workmanship. We are God's workmanship in Christ Jesus until Christ is fully realized. There is no grace in our flesh, only sin and death. We have works, but they must be done in faith and rest, or we risk a breach. What Jesus has started; He will finish when we stay in faith.

Most people think the great falling away in our churches are people who have never been born again. But this is not so. No one ever got born-again by repeating the sinner's prayer. No one ever got saved because they understood the gospel. The flesh cannot understand the spirit. We were saved because of faith in the word spoken. We must be born-again spiritually to begin to understand God. Every one of us became a new creation in Christ Jesus because God was able to get a seed in our hearts. Then, it is up to us to surrender to the new birth or the flesh.

So why are born-again believers deconstructing and falling away? Two main reasons point to the same reason. Most of Israel that was delivered from Egypt died in the wilderness. Why? Because they detested the Mannah from heaven and thirsted more for the things of Egypt. There is nothing new for today's believer who has been delivered from the Egypt of today and is going through their wilderness. Christians have grown tired of the Word of God. They do not have a thirst for the sincere milk of God. They, too, are hungry and thirsty more for the world they came from than the God who promised them total deliverance.

Popular Christianity has turned into the next revelation. And some are working on a newer testament, Christianity 2.0. After growing tired of the same sixty-six books of the Bible, they are looking for a new book. Tired of the parables, plenty of preachers preach from their imaginations, detesting the Mannah from Heaven.

The other reason is much the same as the first. We find Angels giving prophets a scroll to eat. They claim it is sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach. The Word of God is sweet. The promises of God are good to the taste. Taste the Lord and see that He is good! But when Jesus commands us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, it becomes bitter in our stomachs. And challenging to take.

We prefer a mouthwash gospel or a chewing gum gospel. We keep it in the mouth for the flavor and mint-smelling breath but spit it out when we are through.

Becoming born-again is sweet. Denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Him is bitter initially. Hearing the Word of God is sweet. Doing the Word of God is bitter. We deceive ourselves if we think we are going to heaven without discipleship. Discipleship often becomes the grounds for abortion. Discipleship is also where many miscarry their salvation to a premature death and birth. But entering eternity maimed, missing an eye, hand, or foot, is way better than entering eternal Hell fully intact.

Part two is next week.