Chapter 8: Spiritual Rebirth

To be born again is much more than deciding to believe in God

Many people speak of being born again, referring to a decision to believe in God’s existence. What the scriptural authors refer to with the phrase is something that far exceeds a mere profession of belief in God’s existence. As James explained, the difference between a devil and a disciple of Christ is not belief in God’s existence, but in obedience to his word:

19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2)

Many others believe that the process of being born again magically changes you from someone who desires to sin to someone who does not. In reality, as we will see, this is a reversal of cause and effect. It is the choice to not sin again that yields the result of being born again, not the reverse.

Unfortunately, few people at present have experienced the full meaning of being born again. Some have been taught what spiritual rebirth is and what it takes and have not experienced it simply because they are unwilling to do what is required to experience it, but most people have failed to experience it only because they have never been correctly taught what it means and what it takes.

The event of deciding to submit to God

The default state of a person is to passively float through life, not really contemplating what you do or why you do it, animalistically seeking for what feels good right now instead of what is best for you and everyone else in the long-term. This is human nature: it is what a person will be like unless they actively seek to be different.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. (2 Nephi 10:24)

Spiritual rebirth occurs when you decide to abandon your previous guidance system—usually a mix of doing whatever feels good right now with a sprinkle of occasional long-term optimal decisions—for a model where all decisions are made according to your understanding of what God would do in your place:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost... (2 Nephi 31:13)

When you choose to submit to God in all things, you are forgiven of your past sins, or justified. Through accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you are as if you’ve never sinned, and you are worthy of the receipt of the Holy Ghost, which can teach you much more about God, yourself, and life.

Choosing to follow God means to submit to him in all things, even until death, substituting how you think he would think and feel about your situation in place of how you think and feel about it. It means to be “...willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19) or to do all things God commands and to suffer all scenarios he might lead you to and through.

This submission is so total that it is described as having a “broken heart and a contrite spirit”:

And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost... (3 Nephi 9:20)

A broken heart and a contrite spirit requires that you actually do what you understand to be God’s will, no matter what it costs you:

Verily I say unto you, all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me. (D&C 97:8)

18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
19 ...as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. (Romans 6)

Total submission to God necessarily includes:

• Total cessation of all things contrary to your understanding of what God would do in your place.
• Total emulation of all things according to your understanding of what God would do in your place.
• Baptism, which is one of God’s commandments, in demonstration of your commitment to keep all his commandments.

The totality of surrender involved in this decision causes fear in most who consider it. Rather than fear what you might miss out on by following God, it’s good to honestly reconcile yourself to the fact that God knows more about what will lead you to lasting happiness than you do, and he cares more about you obtaining it than you do. There is no reason not to trust him more than you trust yourself:

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism. (Alma 7:15)

Since sin means anything less than your best, the preceding scripture is not just a warning to avoid hellfire and brimstone, but an invitation to truly pursue the best outcomes you can in life, in the only way one can: by submitting to God and following his instructions unfailingly for the rest of your life.

To be born again

Just like a baby being born out of their prenatal habitation, a person who is born again has a completely different view on and motivation toward the world than they had before:

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24)

It is as if all things are new, because you interpret everything you perceive differently than you did, and everything you do is done for different reasons, even when the actions stay the same.

You reset your mindset; you reset your understanding of how life works, and you reset your view of yourself.

To be born again is to think and act intentionally as you believe God would in your place:

6 Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ...
9 ...ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul. (2 Nephi 32)

You think differently, you act differently, and you desire differently. To be born again is to adopt as your motive the benefit of the world, just as Jesus would do, seeking the welfare of all people before your own.¹

To be born again is to live in a constant state of considering and doing what is best—to constantly learn more about what is best.

To be born again is to decide based on reasons, not feelings. It is to learn to act, instead of react—to choose instead of passively float.

To be born again is to learn to see what could be with the eye of faith, not just what is immediately apparent with the eye of the flesh.

To be born again is to be motivated and actuated by your conscience, not your fleshy desires.

To be born again is to submit fully to the contemplation of, increased understanding of, and performance of perfection—so far as you understand it—in all things.

You accept Jesus Christ as your father and as the motivation and instruction for all you do:

7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.
8 And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives. (Mosiah 5)

You become spiritually-minded: you choose to believe that everything about God is good, you couch your perception of reality in your understanding of God, and you couch your understanding of God in your perception of reality. You reach to reconcile every aspect of your life to what you imagine God might think about it. You flip from being acted upon to being the one who acts. You actively curate your own perception and drive your own reality. You seek to bring what you see in the spirit into physical reality instead of allowing your spirit to be subject to physical reality.

Understanding the Holy Ghost

There are many important things to know about the Holy Ghost that are beyond the scope of this book.

For the purposes of the topic of repentance, the key point to understand is that the Holy Ghost is an information channel through which God teaches people more about himself, themselves, and every other aspect of reality:

[God] manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost... (2 Nephi 26:13)

What God can teach you through the Holy Ghost cannot be compared with what can be received by a person in their default state.

God is available to all people through the Holy Ghost, but not all people qualify themselves equally for this privilege.

The natural state of man is contrary to the Holy Ghost:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man.... (Mosiah 3:19)

As a person rebels against the increment of conscience they have naturally, they disqualify themselves from additional information through the Holy Ghost.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

I say unto you, that the man that doeth this, the same cometh out in open rebellion against God; therefore he listeth to obey the evil spirit, and becometh an enemy to all righteousness; therefore, the Lord has no place in him, for he dwelleth not in unholy temples. (Mosiah 2:37)

And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell.... (Alma 34:36)

Whenever people do less than their best, they attenuate the information flow through the Holy Ghost towards the minimal increment available to all people.

Repentance and baptism leverage the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to restore the connection between an individual and God through the Holy Ghost through forgiveness of past sins. When this happens, the moment it happens is called the baptism of fire, because the person is suddenly exposed to a significantly increased increment of God’s intelligence, purging away everything that can only exist in the darkness of one’s previous ignorance:

And it came to pass when they were all baptized and had come up out of the water, the Holy Ghost did fall upon them, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (3 Nephi 19:13)

This connection is required in order for a person to learn sufficiently about God to gain greater joy through becoming like him.

The process of learning more from God while remaining reconciled

Justification is an event. Sanctification is a process. In the scriptures, justification is likened to entering a gate, and sanctification is like walking a path:

O then, my beloved brethren, repent ye, and enter in at the strait gate, and continue in the way which is narrow, until ye shall obtain eternal life. (Jacob 6:11)

It’s very important that you realize that your understanding of God at the outset of the path will not remain the same as you progress in the path.

17 ...the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
18 And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.
19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen. (2 Nephi 31)

As you walk the path, God will teach you more about himself:

Behold, I say unto you, that the good shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, to the name by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd. (Alma 5:38)

Surrendering to God doesn’t just mean you agree to your present understanding of him, but that you will continue to obey him as he teaches you more about himself, yourself, and the world he created. Commonly, people make the mistake of agreeing to enter the path but not to progress onward. They limit God to their original understanding of him—an understanding that is severely incomplete and, in many ways, incorrect. Remember, anyone’s starting understanding of God is at best devoid of all the lessons about him that can only be learned through the Holy Ghost. If you limit your future obedience to your present understanding, you are necessarily limiting your progress with God to your present limited understanding of him.

Don’t expect God to conform to your ideas about him or about reality. Don’t limit him to fulfilling your desires in the ways you imagine them being fulfilled. Those who limit what they will do for God limit what God can do for them. If you limit him in any way by resisting or refusing his invitations to you, those limits will translate to poorer outcomes than you otherwise would have had access to.

A significant portion of what he will teach you along the way is how difficult and dark much of life is. As he reveals more of reality to you, you will have to decide whether or not you still want to obey him, even as it requires more faith and more trust in him to do so.

Those who faithfully continue in this path until they die will obtain eternal life:

And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember that I say unto him, yea, he will remember that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life, according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which testifieth in me. (Alma 7:16)

15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the words of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved. (2 Nephi 31)

Unfortunately, very few choose to enter into and walk along this path:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)

The intended process in life is that we conform ourselves to our initial understanding of God, qualifying for the receipt of the Holy Ghost, then progress onward as he teaches us more about himself through the Holy Ghost:

45 For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
46 And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit.
47 And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father.
50 And by this you may know [the whole world is] under the bondage of sin, because they come not unto me. (D&C 84)

The Holy Ghost is the necessary mechanism to convey the fullness of information about Jesus’ character, which is in turn necessary for us to emulate his example in our own character.

The necessity of being born again

There are many scriptures that indicate that being born again is a requirement for salvation. For example:

Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be born again; for the Spirit saith if ye are not born again ye cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness. (Alma 7:14)

Why is this experience essential? Like everything else God commands, it is not an arbitrary requirement. There is an absolute limit in the growth a person can experience without the Holy Ghost, and the only way to receive the Holy Ghost is through being born again:

For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. (2 Nephi 32:5)

And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do. (2 Nephi 31:12)

Though the difference is impossible to comprehend without experiencing it, understand that human understanding augmented and actuated by God’s influence is incomprehensibly better than the natural understanding. As Jesus said, it is necessary for a person to be born again to “see” and to “enter into” the kingdom of God:

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3)

To “see the kingdom of God” is to perceive and understand more of God’s will. The natural man cannot see or understand what the bornagain son or daughter of God can.

25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;
26 And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. (Mosiah 27)

To “enter into the kingdom of God” is to take a position in the kingdom with respect to other people—to serve those with less understanding of God than you have and to receive service from those with more understanding than you. This is beyond the scope of this book, but will be discussed in a future book dealing with the ministry of men in God’s kingdom.

What you do and what is done to you

Being born again is referred to as a “mighty change of heart.” There are actually multiple changes that co-occur in this event, and while they are indeed mighty, it is important to understand them individually.

Much of the confusion about being born again is related to misunderstandings about what the individual does, what God does, and in what order.

In general, the individual is responsible for much more in the process than what most understand. This is, in general, why so few people have truly been born again. They are waiting for God to do what he has never said he would do, contrary to what he has said we must first do.

In order to be born again, you must first decide to totally trust in God. Trust in God is not something that God gives you. It is something you choose to believe based on the only honest response to what he has done for you and how he is.

Trust in God typically comes through your response to the testimony of those who have tested God’s trustworthiness through enduring significant affliction. As they encounter God’s compensatory justice at the conclusion of their trial, they are empowered to bear testimony of God’s trustworthiness commensurate with the difficulty they have endured. The scriptures are full of such testimonies. Here is one:

And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me. (Alma 36:27)

After first trusting him, those who are willing to experiment on the testimony of those who have tested God’s trustworthiness will obtain their own testimony through being born again:

[TODOOO:look_below]

5 And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day.
6 Now, my son, I would not that ye should think that I know these things of myself, but it is the Spirit of God which is in me which maketh these things known unto me; <u>for if I had not been born of God I should not have known these things. (Alma 38)</u>

In order to be born again, you must forsake every sin of which you are aware. God will not magically transform you into a person who doesn’t sin anymore. You have to actually choose to obey him:

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. (1 John 5:18; see also 1 John 3:1-10)

In order to be born again, you have to desire to do everything that God tells you to do.

Many people seek this mighty change of heart as a way to force them to stop desiring things they know to be against God’s will. It is no surprise that these people have not yet experienced this mighty change—nor will they ever. They must decide, through faith in Jesus Christ, to obey him in all things, at all times, and at all costs. If they do not do this, there will be no change within them. They will continue to sin whenever it is convenient to do so.

Desire is a choice. It is not something that happens to you. God does not compel anyone, ever. It is contrary to the laws of his power.

If God could transmit to you all that he is and has magically, he would surely do it. But he can’t. He can’t give his glory²—it can only be obtained by being like he is, and you can only be like he is by learning about him and choosing to live according to what you learn.

If we are responsible for the preceding changes, what part does God have in it all? The answer is information. Information and agency are the only catalysts. God gives you the freedom to choose, and he provides all the information necessary for you to choose correctly. He can’t force you to use reason, but he gives you the gift to be able to should you choose to do so.

God’s role in this arrangement is neither small nor cheap. What he provides costs far more than what we must do to make use of it, and it is far more valuable than anything we sacrifice to receive it.

The information God provides comes from two sources: his servants and the Holy Ghost.

And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them— (Helaman 15:7)

The mighty change of heart is not a magical, externally-driven outcome. The mighty change of heart is brought about by believing information given you by God, through his servants and through the Holy Ghost.

Justification via information through his servants

It is “the knowledge of the truth...which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them.” (Helaman 15:7)

Repentance comes after an invitation from the word of God through his servants. A holy man named Alma explained that his being born again came as a result of being called to repentance by an angel:

For because of the word which he has imparted unto me [through an angel], behold, many have been born of God, and have tasted as I have tasted, and have seen eye to eye as I have seen; therefore they do know of these things of which I have spoken, as I do know; and the knowledge which I have is of God. (Alma 36:26)

Alma alluded to his extensive experiences preaching the gospel to others. All who believed and repented were born of God, as is always the case.

In another account, Alma describes the pattern, recounting how his father (also named Alma) came to repent and be born again:

7 Behold, [God] changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.
11 Behold, I can tell you—did not my father Alma believe in the words which were delivered by the mouth of Abinadi? And was he not a holy prophet? Did he not speak the words of God, and my father Alma believe them?
12 And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true.
13 And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved.
14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? (Alma 5)

The process laid out by Alma was: 1) the word of God was preached by one of his servants, 2) Alma’s father believed what was said and faithfully repented of his sins, 3) he preached the word to others, who also repented. They all were born again.

We see this pattern repeated again and again. On another occasion, a servant of God named Ammon taught the gospel to a king named Lamoni who repented of his sins, then Lamoni taught the word of God to others who also repented, and all of them were born again:

31 And he, immediately, seeing the contention among his people, went forth and began to rebuke them, and to teach them the words which he had heard from the mouth of Ammon; and as many as heard his words believed, and were converted unto the Lord.
32 But there were many among them who would not hear his words; therefore they went their way.
33 And it came to pass that when Ammon arose he also administered unto them, and also did all the servants of Lamoni; and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil. (Alma 19)

When a person reconciles their thoughts, desires, and actions to all they understand about God, they are freed from the guilt of their past sins, through faith in the words of Jesus Christ, who promises forgiveness of sins to all who forsake their sins. As Alma described of his own repentance:

28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.
29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more. (Mosiah 27)

All who reconcile their lives to God’s will, as far as they understand it, are forgiven of their sins and will be born again. They learn of God’s will through another who knows him more than they do.

Sanctification via information through his spirit

Sanctification comes through “yield[ing] to the enticings of the Holy Spirit.” (Mosiah 3:19) The Holy Ghost changes you, but not until after you forsake sin, and only through giving you more information.

After you forsake sin, God will begin teaching you new things through the Holy Ghost, and he will continue doing so as long as you remain reconciled to everything he teaches you:

Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God. (Helaman 3:35)

This process is called sanctification—a word derived from the Latin, sanctificare, which means “to make holy.” You become more holy with every increment of his knowledge that you obtain and reconcile your life to.

One does not become sanctified by the Holy Ghost without becoming without sin—both of commission, which comes prior to baptism, and of omission, which comes over time through revelation of greater breadth and depth of understanding.

The more information you have received and integrated, the more you will continue to receive. The more information you have received and integrated, the more like God you become.

As God teaches you more about the degree of joy available in him and about the disastrous outcomes of sin, you will grow to feel very different about many things than you do now. You will better understand the cost and value of what God offers and all alternatives. You will learn to be repulsed by sin because you will come to understand its cost and alternatives. You will experience much greater joy in greater receipt and awareness of God’s love. You will feel greater sorrow from a deeper understanding of the poor choices people make, how preventable they are, and how often they make them knowingly.

Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence; and there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God. (Alma 13:12)

...the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent...has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Mosiah 5:2)

It is important to stress that, though the choice of accepting what God offers is yours, everything about being born again is only available because of what God does for you. Through the water of baptism, you stop sinning. Through the blood of Christ, you are forgiven of past sins. Through the spirit of God, you become more like God is through learning more about him and living what you know.

...on account of their exceeding faith and repentance, and their righteousness before God, they choosing to repent and work righteousness rather than to perish...they were... sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God.... (Alma 13:10-12)

If you sin again

Having the spirit of God with you in greater quantities does not make it easier to obey him. Rather, it gives you more and better instructions to obey.

Being born again is only as permanent a state as your choice to continue in perfect obedience to God.

You will only be under the influence of God as much as you choose to be. Your access to the Holy Ghost does not make it impossible for you to choose to sin:

9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8)

You remain born again until you sin again. If you willingly sin, you will return to the same state you were in before being forgiven of your sins.

The spirit of God will not abide in unclean temples:

And he doth not dwell in unholy temples; neither can filthiness or anything which is unclean be received into the kingdom of God.... (Alma 7:21)

If you willingly disobey God, the Holy Ghost will withdraw from you:

36 And now, I say unto you, my brethren, that after ye have known and have been taught all these things, if ye should transgress and go contrary to that which has been spoken, that ye do withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord, that it may have no place in you to guide you in wisdom’s paths that ye may be blessed, prospered, and preserved—
37 I say unto you, that the man that doeth this, the same cometh out in open rebellion against God; therefore he listeth to obey the evil spirit, and becometh an enemy to all righteousness; therefore, the Lord has no place in him, for he dwelleth not in unholy temples. (Mosiah 2)

An example

After hearing the gospel message, one penitent seeker asked his teacher:

...What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy. (Alma 22:15)

This man made the same mistake most Christians do today. He thought that somehow God could magically change his desires from evil to good. Thankfully, he was also willing to make a total sacrifice of all things. As a king, he offered his kingdom, all that he had.

His teacher corrected his understanding, indicating that the catalyst of the change was repentance—his choosing to forsake his sins:

16 But Aaron said unto him: If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest. (Alma 22:16)

The king humbly bowed down before God and offered to forsake all of his sins.

17 And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, saying:
18 O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead. (Alma 22)

Even giving away his kingdom was no sufficient replacement for giving away his heart.

There are people today who claim they desire to receive the Holy Ghost, but haven’t. What they desire is something different than what they are asking for, and they will never find it until they realize and reconcile to what it really means to be born again.

The desire to be changed is not the same as the desire to change. The Holy Ghost enables you to change through giving you greater information. If you aren’t interested in reconciling to what you already know about what is best, why would you think that you would enjoy knowing more about what is best, or be any more likely to reconcile to it? If you are unwilling to find the value in improvement now, when the invitations and necessary sacrifice are small, why would you be willing to find the value in invitations to greater change, which require much greater sacrifice?

You will not be born again until you freely submit to God in all things. So long as you hold out any part of your desires—as long as you continue in any sin whatsoever—you will not be born again.