UPDATE: A new J.C. Ryle 365 Day Devotional has been released from Reformation Heritage Books. This devotional was taken from hundreds of J.C. Ryle's sermons. You can order the devotional HERE.
Characteristics of Being Born Again By J.C. Ryle
The change which our Lord here declares needful to salvation is evidently no slight or superficial one. It is not merely reformation, or amendment, or moral change, or outward alteration of life.
It is a thorough change of heart, will, and character. It is a resurrection. It is a new creation. It is a passing from death to life. It is the implanting in our dead hearts of a new principle from above. It is the calling into existence of a new creature, with a new nature, new habits of life, new tastes, new desires, new appetites, new judgments, new opinions, new hopes, and new fears. All this, and nothing less than this is implied, when our Lord declares that we all need a “new birth.”
~ J.C. Ryle
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 122.