The Necessity of Being Born Again

It is tempting to lose sight of the utter necessity of being born again. People can easily give way to the delusion that if there is a God He would recognize the hard working, reasonable and righteous people that most of us are and that if there is a Kingdom coming only the really bad and evil people will be excluded.
Nicodemus, like many in his own day and in ours, was ignorant of his precarious situation. Here is someone who was suddenly, shockingly confronted with the inconvenient truth that without the miracle of new birth all are excluded from the Kingdom. Jesus knew what is in humanity - how untrustworthy the human heart. Those who trust in their religious or moral status like Nicodemus fail to see the judgement that is upon all of us. They do not recognize how desperate their need is for God to do for us that which we are unable to do for ourselves. Jesus exposes the huge error in their thinking by declaring the absolute impossibility of seeing or entering the Kingdom of God without being born of God.
He calls us to look, not to who we are or what we have done, as if that could save us, but rather to look to the Son who, because God so loved the world, was lifted up for us on a cross so that we might not perish but have eternal life.