This is the third time I've tried to post only to have my words disappear! So I will shorten my answer and divide it into multiple posts.
The Bible has your answers.
The more you read what God says you should gain understanding. You can't give yourself the new birth. That is God's doing.
1 Corinthians 3 NIV
1Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ.
2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
4For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but
only God,
who makes things grow.
8The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.
9For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building...
18Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”;
20and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
21So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours,
22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,
23and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
end of part one
