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From our physical birth by our human parents, we have a dying physical body; a corrupted psychological organ (the soul), consisting of the mind, emotion, and will; and a spirit that is dead (Ephesians 2:1) and incapable of contacting God. By receiving Christ as our Savior, we are born of God. The Spirit of God comes into our human spirit to regenerate it, enliven it, with the life of God. This is to be born again (John 3:5-6). First we are born of our parents, then we are born of God (John 1:12-13). The first birth gives us the opportunity to have the second birth. The first birth produces us as a dirty vessel; the second birth cleanses us and fills us with the divine, eternal, and reigning life of God (Romans 5:17). The first birth destines us to die; the second birth results in life eternal. In the first birth we are cursed, but in the second we are blessed (Ephesians 1:3),not with material riches but with God. A born-again Christian, therefore, is a person who has made his beginning, receiving Christ as his new life in his spirit (Ephesians 3:16), (Romans 6:4), (2 Corinthains 5:17). Every genuine Christian is a born-again Christian, and once a person has been born again he can never lose this divine life within him (John 10:28). As he continues by living as a Christ-man, his thoughts, his speech, and his deeds become those which are out from Christ, in Christ, for Christ, and expressing Christ.
The term "Christian" comes from the Greek word "christianos," which means Christ-man, or an adherent of Jesus Christ. In the Bible, this word was first used as a nickname (Acts 11:26), a term of reproach, because the believers must have given others a feeling that they were absolute for Christ. The apostle Peter used it later to remind the believers to stand firm for Christ and not be ashamed (1 Peter 4:16). Thus, a Christian is a person who is totally full of Christ, occupied by Christ, living for Christ, living out Christ to express Christ, and even living Christ. By this definition, most people who call themselves Christians actually are not. They might have believed and received Christ, yet they are not living as adherents of Christ.