John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
It sounds like we first have to keep Jesus words (commandments?) before we can be born again (God the Holy Spirit takes his abode in us).
What's your understanding?
Depends if your referring to the ten commandments, the two greatest commandments. Or the commandments listed in one John.
That is impossible. One cannot bear any fruit before one has been grafted into Christ. One cannot possibly love others, unless they first receive the Holy Spirit.
All bear the bad fruit before they are reconciled to Jesus. Everyone is lost before that reconciliation that Jesus accomplished.
So how do we know someone is a Christian, how do we know we are a Christian?
By the fruit you and they bear.
How do you know you are truly a believer in Jesus Christ? By the fruit you bear!
Have a look in the mirror and see if you are patient, kind, gentle, sympathetic, loving towards others, e.t.c. That is the fruit that the apostles defined.
You can obey a commandment and whatever that commandment might be. Yet still be a cold, detached, judgmental, unforgiving, brutal, unkind person.
One must be growing as a Christian and bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And above all, we are saved only by the grace of God in the end.