At one time, man was not able to be saved. At one time, salvation was not even available. There was a time, before Jesus died on the cross and before He was resurrected, that salvation and the infilling of the Holy Spirit was not available to anybody that wanted it. But now it is available. How did that all come about? Here's what happened.

"But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). When Jesus came up out of the grave, He defeated sin and death. He became the Head of the Church and made a way for us to be members of His body.

Jesus was the Son of God and Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus was all God and He was all man. The reality is, Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection made the way whereby we can be saved. He had to lead the way. When we follow Him, we can be born into the kingdom, also. But, here's the key: we're born into the Kingdom because of grace and by grace. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves; it's all by what He's done.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
(Eph. 2:8-9)

Verse eight tells us that grace is a gift. The grace that saves us does not come by works. In fact, we cannot earn it. It's not because of our great effort. Why? So we can't boast in it. We cannot boast about being saved because we did it. Why? Because we didn't do it. There's nothing we've done or could do that's good enough, that's powerful enough to get us saved. Nothing we can do can save us. We can, however, do all things through Christ and because of grace, through faith, we can be saved.

Being saved through faith means we believe what God said in His Word about salvation. We believe everything He says about it and we accept it. We don't see it, but we accept it by faith. Salvation is given to us by the grace of God. Grace is God empowering us to do the impossible. It's impossible for us to pass from death to life; it's impossible for us to be born a second time! He gives us the inward power to do what we can't do. Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." We could say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me to do all things."

Look at what Jesus said: "Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes'" (Mark 9:23). But how are they possible? They are possible through grace. Again, what is grace? Grace is that power God gives us to do those things He wants done that we cannot do under our own power.

Grace is God making a deposit in us of His very own power and ability. It does something in us and enables us to do those things that normally we couldn't do.

So, when we're saved, we're saved by grace. Nothing we can do can get us saved. We can clean up, dress up, and go to church every day. We can do our best to follow the Ten Commandments and every rule our church and denomination has in their by-laws. But our actions and attempts will not save us. We cannot get good enough to be saved.

How then do we get saved? By God's grace. God empowers us. God gives us the grace (the ability) through faith (by believing) in Jesus to get saved. So, it is by grace that we are born again.