Have you ever wondered how it is possible for you to get into your car, turn on the engine, and drive off? It’s really very simple. The only reason why you are able to do so is because the very Life of God is in you. It is called the Breath of Life. The Breath of Life is not the air that you breathe into your lungs. Without the Breath of Life you will not be able to breathe air into your lungs. The Breath of Life is the very Life within God imparted to you so that you may function as a living soul or living human being.

Now you should also know how it is possible for you to eat, drink, party, use foul language, tell dirty jokes - and simply just be alive to go to sleep at night and wake up the next morning to continue doing what you always do. You are doing all these things because the Life of God in you enables you to do so. To reiterate, you are using God’s Breathe of Life in you to do your own thing and not to do what God wants you to do.

And do you know why God does not remove His Breath of Life from you even though you reject Him or only give a degree of mental assent to Him? It is called the Grace of God. It is God’s gift to you for the purpose of giving you the opportunity to change your mind about God. Changing your mind about God is called repentance. Basically, this means that you finally understand that without God you have no life and that you can do nothing without Him.

You need to understand also that without repentance you are dead while you live. You have a spirit within you, which is the real you and which you have and are as a result of that very Breath of Life  within you, which God allows you to retain, but in the eyes of God you are classified as a spiritually dead person, that is, you are spiritually separated from Him – therefore, you are dead while you live.

You are a spirit living in and through a physical body. God is a Spirit and He is not subject to death. He lives eternally. Since you have part of Him in you, you also cannot cease to exist. Your existence as a spiritual being continues after your physical body succumbs due to sickness, accident or crime. Should you not have repented while still inside your physical body here on earth you will continue your existence in a place called hell – which is the eternal destination for all who are spiritually separated from God. Your nature of sin will have taken you there. In other words, your decision not to repent (have a complete change of mind concerning God) would also have been a decision to continue your existence in hell. Simply put, you will have done it all by yourself. Hell is as real as you consider yourself to be real.

How do you draw yourself to God? Well, firstly, you need to understand that God is real and that you exist only because He exists. You also need to realise that you are already condemned as a consequence of your nature of sin. This is why you are dead while you live. You need to be reconciled to God and the only way you can do that is to perform an act of faith. God’s Grace enables you to do that. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8,9)

The quoted Scripture makes it absolutely clear that you can do nothing to earn redemption; your redemption comes purely as a gift because of God’s Grace alone and you have to accept that by faith. God has even given you the necessary faith to do so. “...God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3

So, you have to take that measure of faith and approach the Son of God who said, “... I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)

Only by Jesus can you be reconciled to God and overturn your spiritually dead condition. You will, in effect, be born again to start a brand new life. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2Cor. 5:17)

All you need to do is stand before Jesus and say a prayer.

“Dear Lord Jesus, I now fully understand that I am a sinner. Please forgive me. I believe that you took the penalty for my sin nature by dying on the cross in my place and that you rose from the dead on the third day so that I may also live again with your gift of eternal life. I now receive you as my Lord and Saviour and ask that you would take control of my life. Amen.”

If you said that prayer with a sincere heart, then you are indeed born again and can expect blessings in every area of your life, for you are now considered to be a child of your Father in heaven. You even possess much stronger faith – that of Jesus Christ.

And the next time you start your car engine and drive off you will be fully conscious of the fact that the Life of God within you enables you to do so.

Now retired, Jack Vorster has a background in marketing in the field of newspaper advertising. As a result of a life-changing experience he turned his attention to the study of the human make-up and the realities connected to human behaviour based on the Word of God.