Posts Tagged ‘ Re-Birthday ’

A Quarter-Century Re-Birthday

On this day 25 years ago, at 6:46 PM CST, I bent my knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior. (If you do a search on this site for “birthday”, you will see the various explanations.)

I like to call it my Re-Birthday, as we call faith in Christ being born again. This comes from John 3 and 1 Peter 1. I encourage everyone to remember their own re-birthday (and if you aren’t sure/can’t remember, just claim your birthday.)

I also like to bake some sort of cake and then serve it to others as a way to teach self-sacrifice and becoming a servant to all as our shared salvation is celebrated.

Sometimes it’s messy, or we’re still a little crisp on the sides, but we have a sweet salvation.

This year, I get to start Christian Worldview and Intro to Philosophy courses (as one of the instructors) with 245 students who were all born after this momentous day in my life. Tomorrow I am with fellow seminarians who also were mostly born after this date! (2 are about my age and from Africa. We actually have about 30 students from Malawi [majority from here], Kenya [Gama is the one who invited me to his home and is about my age], Ghana [the other person about my age], and Sierra Leone.)

It is a little weird to think that I have been a Christian so long, especially having come to Christ as a teenager and now working with teens (and 20-somethings) as a youth pastor and college instructor.

God is so good.

Also, it is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so join me in wishing her a happy and blessed day! If not for her, I would not have my wife!

Also also, it is my friend Fletcher’s birthday. We met in seminary. He’s a TheoBro of the hughest order.

God bless you, and remember that Jesus Christ is the reason we live and move and breathe and have meaning and being!

Be excellent and party on!

2025
01/09
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A Score and Four Re-Birthday

On this day 24 years ago, at 6:46 PM CST, I bent my knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior. (If you do a search on this site for “birthday”, you will see the various explanations.)

I like to call it my Re-Birthday, as we call faith in Christ being born again. This comes from John 3 and 1 Peter 1. I encourage everyone to remember their own re-birthday (and if you aren’t sure/can’t remember, just claim your birthday.)

This year, I get to start Christian Worldview courses (as one of the instructors) with 167 students who were all born after this momentous day in my life. Tomorrow I am with fellow seminarians who also were mostly born after this date! (2 are about my age, and 2 others are in theor later 20’s.)

Also, it is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so join me in wishing her a happy and blessed day! If not for her, I would not have my wife!

God bless you, and remember that Jesus Christ is the reason we live and move and breathe and have meaning and being!

2024
01/09
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Another Re-Birth Celebration

On this day 23 years ago, at 6:46 PM CST, I bent my knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior. (If you do a search on this site for “birthday”, you will see the various explanations.)

I like to call it my Re-Birthday, as we call faith in Christ being born again. This comes from John 3 and 1 Peter 1.

I am super involved with the spreading of the faith and growing others in their faith, whether as one of the pastors at church, leading Bible studies, or teaching Christian Worldview to college students (and others in many other ways).

Care to join me? 😉

Also, it is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so join me in wishing her a happy and blessed day! If not for her, I would not have my wife!

God bless you, and remember that Jesus Christ is the reason we live and move and breathe and have meaning!

2023
01/09
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A Faith Old Enough to Drink?

Today is my wonderful mother-in-law’s birthday.

Also, it is what I call my Re-birthday.

21 years ago today, in a small Nazarene church in Bloomington, IL, at 6:46 pm CST, I realized that I believed the Gospel message. Jesus got a firm hold of me, and that is when everything began to change for me.

And I celebrate with a cake.

Why?

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luke 15:7, 10, 24

Just like the song says, this wretch was lost and dead, but now I am found and alive. This calls for celebration!

Being as I am now re-21, and I mentioned drinking in the title:

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
Luke 5:37‭-‬39 ESV

I am not who I was 21 years ago. I am not who I was 10 years ago. I have grown and learned much in Christ. I have been made new to carry the New Covenant of our Lord into our world as I commune with Him by His Holy Spirit.

Therefore, let us celebrate our common salvation and share this faith with our fallen world!

2021
01/09
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A Faith Old Enough to Count in Decades

Many years on this blog I mark a very important date in my own life: January 9. And not just because it is my wonderful mother-in-law’s birthday.

Two of my more favorite passages from the Bible are these:

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:7‭-‬8, ESV

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12, ESV

What wisdom do we gain by considering our lives and drawing near to God?

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:3, ESV

So, every January 9, I celebrate my Re-Birthday, the day I was born again by faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And on January 9, 2020, (specifically, at 6:47 pm CST), I am celebrating 20 years as a Christian.

And I think people should celebrate their salvation much more than we do, to show the world the joy of the world to bring others to glorify the Lord.

Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation.
Psalm 35:9, ESV

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

Psalms 40:16 ESV

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 1:3, ESV

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:16, ESV

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:14‭, ‬17, ESV

2020
01/09
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Another Re-Birthday

On this day 19 years ago, at 6:46 PM CST, I bent my knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior. (If you do a search on this site for “birthday”, you will see the various explanations.)

I like to call it my Re-Birthday, as we call faith in Christ being born again. This comes from John 3 and 1 Peter 1.

Something that excites me this year is that my Re-Birthday falls on Wednesday, which means I get to teach the youth about our Lord today!

Also, it is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so join me in wishing her a happy and blessed day! If not for her, I would not have my wife!

God bless you, and remember that Jesus Christ is the reason we live and move and breathe and have meaning!

2019
01/09
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A Faith Old Enough To Vote

Today is my 18th Re-Birthday! [For more details, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Yep. 18 years ago today I succumbed to Jesus’ bear hug of forgiveness and grace. My faith is now legally an adult in most of the world.

Do I feel accomplished?

Honestly, I will always know there is more to do until the day I no longer need to number my days (Psalm 90:12), for The Wisdom of God made flesh has been made fully known to His Creation.

Rather, I am beginning to feel the pressure of time. I was a teenager when entering the Christian fold, so I am only in my mid-30s. However, the Lord has been teaching me to number my days (ask those who know me best! There are stories!), so I can see “missed opportunities” and periods of disobedience in my past. I see faces of people I could have been “That person” to.

Yet, these should not be seen as regrets … at least of I truly believe my sovereign Lord truly is sovereign. Rather, these are moments to glean from and push forward. 

I think Paul put it best.

. . . and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:9‭-‬16, ESV

Therefore, I finish as I have in the past:

 . . . by quoting Jude (3):

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Let us celebrate our common salvation and share this faith with our fallen world!

2018
01/09
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Re-17 but not 17 Again

​WIN_20160109_11_45_22_Pro.jpg

Today is my amazing mother-in-law’s birthday.

Also, it is what I call my Re-birthday.

17 years ago today, in a small Nazarene church in Bloomington, IL, I realized that I believed the Gospel message. Jesus got a firm hold of me, and that is when everything began to change for me. It took about six more months for it to really mean something to me, but the change was evident even then. (Ask my parents, who, at the time, were annoyed with my sudden music choices and leaving radios on around the house.)

The point of all of this, then, is that Jesus is Lord. And the picture above shows that I celebrate by baking a cake, and I serve it to others.

Why?

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luke 15:7, 10, 24

Just like the song says, this wretch was lost and dead, but now I am found and alive. This calls for celebration!

Therefore, I finish with the full reason for this post by quoting Jude (3):

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Let us celebrate our common salvation and share this faith with our fallen world!

 

2017
01/09
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My Soul’s Quinceañera? (My 15th Re-Birthday)

For starters, I know that a Quinceañera is a celebration for young Latinas becoming women at the age of 15!

In reply, I refer you Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

That being said …

Fifteen years ago today, at 6:47 pm (CST), the Holy Spirit got a hold of me, and to the glory of the Father I knelt down for the first time to make that blessed confession (see Matthew 16:15-16):

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” [Daniel M. Klem] replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Has your soul been wrapped in the arms of the Savior?

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John 3:3-21, ESV

2015
01/09
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Really?!

Get a taste of wisdom over at Proverbial Thought!

Big and Newborn Bros

Big and Newborn Bros

My Wedding with Nick

At my wedding 2.6 years ago

Yesterday was my little brother’s 28th birthday. I still think of him as a junior higher, perhaps 13 or 14 years old. That is now half his age! I can barely believe it!

This past Thursday, January 9, was my 14th Re-birthday. It was 14 years ago I first knelt down and declared I believed Jesus is my Savior and the Son of God. I was only a couple years older than how I still view my brother when that happened.

This all got me to thinking about something.

Some friends and I had a conversation about conversations a while back. It was all about the exclamation “Really?!”

The full context of this conversation was focused around what one of us had heard about friendly conversation and this one word. Asking this word after a friend or loved one makes a statement is the same as casting doubt on the validity of the statement.

It is one thing if the conversation goes like this:

“I just won a million dollars!”
“Wow! Really?!”

Winning a million dollars is not a typical occurrence in daily life. Shock and amazement with a little bit of doubt makes sense.

But when the conversation is more like this:

“I lost my phone today.”
“Really?”

In this context, it can said as any of the following:

  • Anger: “How could you do that again?”
  • Sarcasm: “This is such a surprise coming from you!”
  • Astonishment: “This just happened?”

And many others.

The underlying theme is that saying “Really?!” denotes disbelief or mistrust, or at worst it denotes aggression or animosity. And to be fair, most of us use the term in such a way as to say “Tell me more!”

In Jesus’ Name. Really?!

You are probably thinking about how often you say “Really?!” to people, and, if you are like we were, you are attempting to justify your use of the term and explain that you usually mean “Tell me more!”

Let me then ask you this, Christian believer: How do you live your life?

Do go around claiming your connection to your church and as a good Christian, yet those outside the Church look at your example of love and light and think “Is this person really ‘blameless and innocent, [a child] of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16, ESV)

Put another way, do they look at your life and say “Really?! That’s a Christ follower?” And they want to stay away from God because of your example?

Or do you go around sharing the good news of Christ as you live out His commands of love and sacrifice? Do those outside the Church look at your example of love and light and think, “Really?! This kind of thing is true? Tell me more!”

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.
2 Corinthians 13:5-6, ESV

2014
01/14
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