I can guarantee this truth: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. (John 3:5 GW)
No one has ever yet been "volitionalized" into the kingdom of God; that is, so
appealed to in their wills to make a decision, and to
determine to be in the kingdom of God, as by the
strength of that decision and that determination to have
got through. It cannot be done.
A great deal of mistake has been made in that
connection, and an entirely false position has been
brought about for multitudes of people because the effort
has been made along those lines, and they have been
appealed to along those lines to exercise their own
reason, and their own feelings, and their own wills, as
though that would regenerate them.
Thus interest and activity in Christianity is one thing,
but being in the kingdom is quite another. Multitudes of
good-meaning people are interested in Christianity, and
are active in Christianity. They see the value of the
Christian standard of life, and Christian teaching, and
have thought if only it could be applied, how different the
world would be. So they have become busy in
Christianity, and have thought they were in the kingdom
of God. Not at all!
You can have all the interest in Christianity without being
in the kingdom.
This is what the Lord Jesus said, in effect, and in other
and more concise words, to Nicodemus. The only way in
is by our receiving Divine Life as a gift through faith in
Jesus Christ, and that becomes the new basis of the new
creation, the basis upon which everything begins and is
carried through, the basis of Divine Life. That Life has in it
all the qualities and energies of the new creation. It
constitutes our being in what is called the Kingdom of
God.