Since you have in obedience to the Truth
When they responded to God's calling to faith in believing the Gospel.
purified your souls
The Truth here is Jesus' fulfillment of the Law, in sacrificing Himself so that His Blood would wash away our sins. Now our souls, our hearts, are free from the shackles (sins) that bound our thinking processes.
for a sincere love of the brethren,
Now that our minds are clear, our affections for one another (fileo, brotherly love) are not clouded with the residue of the past, and we can consider one another with a fresh view.
fervently love one another from a clean heart,
Now we can love one another (agapeo, unconditional, as God loves us) without any filters, or barriers, to limit our care. From a clean heart, pure, not having any kind of dirt to interfere in our relationships with one another.
for you have been born again
Born a second time, the spiritual birth being compared to the physical birth.
not of seed which is perishable
Mortal, what will one day die; flesh.
but imperishable,
What will never die, spirit; that will continue to live on forever.
that is, through the living and enduring Word of God.
The Word of God is spirit, as Jesus told His disciples in John 6:63, It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing; the Words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are Life. Our bodies are flesh.
When what is spiritual in us is gone, our bodies are dead. Our minds, our emotions, are spiritual, they have no substance. We are born with dead spirits, our life is only physical. Then when we are born spiritually the Holy Spirit comes in and makes our spirit alive. That is why it is referred to as a birth.
For:
All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. (See Psalm 103:15-16.)This is our physical life. We have a very brief time here, our bodies will not last very long, even if we live a long life, it is but a moment compared to Eternity.
But God's Word is Life. Eternal Life, because He is eternal. His Word is Spirit, it is Life, it is Jesus, it is His Holy Spirit. It is God's breath, He spoke and we are.
And this is the Word which was preached to you.
This Living, eternal Life was given to us when we heard the Word and it penetrated our psyche into our very heart and soul, and caused us to be born spiritually with a real, vibrant, lasting Life.
This is the power of God's Word. And it now lives in us. We have no excuse, we need never go back to thinking like we used to think, or doing the things we used to do, before we were saved.
We are now transferred into a whole new realm.
I used to live in the world, with worldly thoughts, doing worldly things.
Now that God has found me and made me Alive, I see with new eyes, and can see what I was blind to before. I have understanding of things I never could have imagined before. Everything changed for me that day, though nothing around me changed, because I was born again.
O my Father, thank You so much for choosing me! Thank You for knowing me, and loving me anyway! Thank You for opening my eyes to Your Truth, and giving me understanding of what I could not conceptualize before.
Father, continue to teach me how to love others with Your Love. Show me how to demonstrate to others how much You Love them. Give me opportunities to give to others the same Love with which You have Loved me.
O Father, help us all to live together with one another in the fellowship and care for one another to build the society that You have designed us to be in.
Father, give us Your strength in our weaknesses, Your compassion in our apathy, Your provision in our lack, and Your joy in our misery.
You are our Source, my Father, of Life and Light and Love and everything else that we need, that comes of these.
Hold our hands as we walk through this vale of tears; keep our feet in the path You have placed them on, let us not wander or fall off the course, but step each step in Your footsteps, until we reach the end our our course. And may we look back to see how You have cause everything to work out for our benefit and Your glory!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
