Every unfoldment of the divine idea, Christ, in human consciousness echoes in some modest way the never-to-be-surpassed advent of Christ Jesus. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again." John 3:7. And as the Gospels radiate their message of man's sonship with God as His likeness, and of our need to claim our sonship through Christian discipleship, spiritual rebirth comes to us, too.
Isn't spiritual regeneration in every instance the developing outcome of one's inmost spiritual purity and prayerful communion with God? Isn't God the only Mother and Father of man— a fundamental truth that undergirds our spiritual rebirth? In a manner of speaking, each individual's regeneration emerges from a virgin conception.
Through continuing daily prayer and earnest practice, the individual who is experiencing in some measure a spiritual rebirth is welcoming as his own the emergence of man's true, spiritual individuality. He discovers within his true nature the qualities exemplified by Mary, the mother of Jesus—qualities that faithfully, meekly mother his newly realized selfhood as God's spiritual offspring. He finds Josephlike qualities that charitably, obediently bring spiritual strength and protection. Thus, through the nurturing and guardianship of God-derived fidelity and love, our native Christliness progressively appears to human view. In this way we put on "the new man," Eph. 4:24. as Paul called it.
