We're born with lots of built-in tendencies. Some of them are evil. They show up pretty early... think "the terrible twos". They stay with us, tenaciously. But, part of our minds can rise above that selfishness, and ask the Lord's help to fight those evil loves. When we do that, we start on the road to Regeneration, or Rebirth.
Our spiritual life changes gradually. Not all at once. Are we heading in the right direction? How can we be spiritually reborn? It's a process. (See 2 Peter 1:5, and many other places in the Word.)
For anyone who believes in heaven, one question stands above all the others: How can I get there? How can I be saved?
Repentance doesn’t just mean confessing our sins, being forgiven, and then forgetting about it and going right back to what we were doing before. In order to truly repent, we need to change our ways.
Here's a summary of the key New Christian teachings about regeneration.
Sin comes first into our desires, then into our thoughts, and finally, if we let it, into our actions.
Imagine a society where everyone is always "looking out for #1".
This is a beautiful prophecy, but two thousand years later much in our world is still not peaceful. Why is that?