Not of the Will of the Flesh

Then we read, “Nor of the will of the flesh.” What does that mean? It just means that you cannot make yourself a Christian by any self-determination. Suppose that you said to yourself, “I have made up my mind that from tonight on I am going to be a Christian,” that would not make you one. It is very good to come to a decision like that, to come to the place where you make up your mind to become a Christian, but that will not make you a child of God. If I were born in some country where they have a hereditary monarchy, I might say, “I am tired of being just one of the commonalty; I have made up my mind that from now on I am going to be a member of the royal family.” I might go to a tailor, show him a picture of a royal person, and say to him, “Now, dress me up like that.” And I might begin to sign myself as a royal highness, or some other high-sounding title, but I would only be a fraud, for no man ever became a member of the royal family by the will of the flesh; he has to be born into the family.
No one ever became a child of. God by simply making up his mind that he would be a Christian. You could do that according to your own standards, if Jesus had never died on the cross. You could make up your mind that from a given time you would call yourself a child of God, try to live as a child of God should live, even though Jesus had never suffered and bled and died for your sins upon the tree. Why did He go to the cross, if simply by an act of your will, you could make yourself a Christian?
You have no more power to make yourself a Christian than I have to make myself the president of the United States. If I should go into politics, no matter how favorably the people might look upon me, nor how able I might be, I could never become president of the United States, because I was born on the other side of the line. I was born in Toronto, Canada, and the Constitution of the United States says that no man can be president who was not born in this country. I might make up my mind to become a politician, and do my best to ingratiate myself with the people, but I never could become president of the United States, because although I am a naturalized citizen, I was born an alien. No man can ever become a child of God by making up his mind to be a Christian. You have to be born a child of God, and it is too late to be born that way the first time; but thank God, you can be born again.