6. How do I become a Christian?

Becoming a Christian is the easiest thing in the world. Anyone can do it.

You don’t have to be smart; you don’t have to be physically fit; you don’t have to be a certain age – you’re never too young and you’re never too old; you don’t have to go through training or counselling.

The only qualification is that you have to want it.

If you don’t want it, it won’t happen, no matter what you say or do.

If you do want it, it will happen, even though you say the wrong thing, stumble over your words, or just burst into tears.

God knows the heart of every human being, so He knows your heart. If your heart is genuine and you truly want to follow Jesus, He’s waiting patiently for you to come to Him.

It’s as easy as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’

‘A’ stands for two words. The first one is ACCEPT.

ACCEPT that God is who He says He is, and that Jesus is who He says He is.

He is the CREATOR of all, the SUSTAINER of all, the REDEEMER of all, and the JUDGE of all.

There is no authority in the universe that is higher than God the Father, and God the Father is the only One in the universe who is higher than God the Son, Jesus Christ.

ACCEPT that what God says about you is true – that you are a sinner who deserves to be cast from God’s presence as unrighteous, unholy, and unclean, but that Jesus died on the cross so that you could be saved from that fate and instead brought into God’s presence forgiven, justified, reconciled, sanctified, and purified.

At this point, you may not understand all this. But don’t worry about that. Many Godly men and women who have walked with Jesus for decades are still learning about the wonderful truths of the Gospel.

Being taught by God is a life-long occupation.

The second ‘A’ word is ADMIT.

ADMIT to yourself that you are a sinner. It’s one thing to say the words in your head or with your mouth, but what really matters is what you say to yourself in your HEART.

If your heart is saying, “Well, I’ve made a few mistakes and done a few things wrong, but all in all I’m not a bad person - nobody’s perfect, after all”, then you’re not quite ready to start this journey.

If you’re trying to justify yourself, then you won’t want God’s justification, which means you won’t want the power of Christ’s crucifixion.

However, if your heart is saying, “I’ve made a mess of my life, it’s all my own fault, and I need to be saved!”, then I would say that you’re ready to move on to letter ‘B’.

‘B’ stands for BELIEVE.

The Bible says:

Now, this believing goes a little deeper than the accepting that I spoke about earlier. Look at how that statement in Acts 16:31 is rendered in the Classic Amplified Bible:

If you’ve heard the Gospel message and you’re saying something like, “OK, that sounds fair enough, so I’ll accept that this is true”, then you’re not yet believing in the way that God wants you to believe.

Once again, this is a matter of the heart, where in your heart you are able to say to Jesus, “I believe that You are able to save me, to keep me, to watch over me, to guide me, and to bring me home to God the Father, and I’m trusting You to do it, because I believe that You are who You say You are, and that what You did on the cross was for my salvation, and that’s what I need, that’s what I want.”

‘C’ stands for three words, the first of which is CONFESS.

There are two sides to confession. Here is the first one:

To confess means to be open and honest about what you feel, or what you believe, or what’s going on in your heart. In a superficial relationship, when someone asks us how things are going we say something like, “Yeah, all’s good”, while inside we’re struggling but don’t want to show it.

Sin is like a sickness, in that if you hide it away and don’t do anything about it, it festers and eventually kills you. If you’re sick, you go to the doctor, tell him exactly what you’re experiencing, and allow him to treat the disease.

Alcoholics Anonymous will tell you that until you stand up and confess, “I’m an alcoholic”, there’s nothing that anyone can do to help you.

With sin, we have to go to the only one who can help us, Jesus Christ, and tell Him exactly what’s going on so that He can fix it.

Of course, He already knows everything about you, so the purpose of the exercise is not to keep Him informed. It’s to submit yourself to Him, entrusting yourself to His care, and permitting Him to deal with the issues in your life.

It’s one thing to confess, “Lord, I’m a sinner”. This is a good thing to do. But it is far more beneficial to be specific about your sins.

Now, it is impossible to confess in detail every sin that you ever committed. I was twenty-three years old when I gave my life to Christ. To confess all of my sins would have taken another twenty-three years!

There are areas in all of our lives where we tend towards particular kinds of sin, such as lying, being ill-tempered, accusing others, promiscuity, laziness, over-eating, drunkenness, drug abuse, and so on.

Whatever areas of sin are the big issues in your life should be confessed and laid at the foot of the cross with a COMMITMENT to turn away from them and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus from now on.

We’ll come back to the second side of confession shortly, but before that let’s look at the second ‘C’ word, which is COMMIT.

Becoming a Christian is not just about getting a clean sheet from God. It’s about committing your life to Christ as His DISCIPLE. (That’s the ‘D’ word, by the way!)

As we saw previously, a disciple is someone who is being TAUGHT BY GOD how to live a lifestyle that is pleasing to Him and is in keeping with His will.

If you were a student intent on earning a degree, you would commit yourself to the regime of study and submit to the guidance and instruction of your tutor.

If you were an athlete intent on winning a competition, you would commit yourself to the regime of training and submit to the guidance and instruction of your coach.

If you were an apprentice intent on acquiring a skill, you would commit yourself to the work regime and submit to the guidance and instruction of your mentor.

If you were a Christian intent on knowing God and becoming like Jesus, you would commit yourself to the regime of discipleship and submit to the guidance and instruction of your Saviour.

So, having dealt with the second ‘C’, let’s go back to the first ‘C’ – CONFESS – and look at it’s other meaning.

It’s one thing to confess your sins to Jesus, but it’s another thing to confess Jesus to the world. Here’s what apostle Paul says to the Christians in Rome:

Again, we can see from this passage that salvation is a matter of the HEART. Heart belief is key to our salvation, but it must be accompanied by the outward CONFESSION of that belief, or of that faith.

There are many countries in the world where to confess openly that you are a follower of Christ would result in your arrest, imprisonment, and possibly death. Thankfully, that is not currently the case in Western democracies.

If you confess Christ you may find that you are ridiculed, mocked, bullied, or otherwise opposed or mistreated. However, you will also find that your stance is respected by decent and honourable people who value righteousness.

Winston Churchill once said, “You have enemies? Good! It means that you have stood up for something you believe in.”

Listen to the apostle John:

Jesus himself said:

The third ‘C’ is CHANGE.

Now, God does not expect you to change anything before you come to Him. He knows that you can’t change in any meaningful or helpful way apart from His grace. That’s why Jesus had to die on the cross. If you could change yourself, then Jesus would not have had to die.

However, once you’ve given your life to Christ, change is inevitable. Remember, you’re becoming a disciple in order to learn a lifestyle which is different from the lifestyle you’ve been living up until now.

So, if you’re thinking, “I want God to forgive my sins and give me a second chance, but I’m going to keep on doing things the way I’m doing them now”, then you’re not ready to become a Christian.

Do you remember what the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews said were the two fundamentals of following Jesus?

Repentance means an about turn and a new direction.

An equivalent term is CONVERSION. Here they are together in the old King James translation:

No repentance, no conversion, no sins blotted out.

But the biggest change of all comes about when you genuinely repent, as Paul tells us:

If you’re ready to be a new creation in Christ – a new man, a new woman, a new boy, a new girl – then you’re ready to take the biggest and most important step that you’ll ever take in your life.

What Do I Have To Do?

There is no formula. There is no ceremony. There is no fixed way of doing this. All you have to do is lift up your heart to God and ask Him.

You may not be able to see Him or hear Him, but He sees and hears you. But He’s not looking at whether you’re standing or sitting or kneeling, and He’s not listening to check if you get the words right or the grammar right, or if you’re whispering or shouting.

God is looking at and listening to your HEART, because that’s where the work is being done.

However, you may find it helpful to have a model prayer to pray. This type of prayer is normally referred to as ‘the sinner’s prayer’, for obvious reasons.

I am going to give you a model sinner’s prayer. You may use it verbatim if you like, or you may prefer to use your own words. It’s up to you. Whatever is right for you is right for you.

The important thing is that you be honest with God and with yourself.

So, remember your A, B, C:

• Accept and Admit
• Believe
• Confess, Commit, and Change

Model Prayer

Almighty God, Eternal Father, my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Judge,

I come before you this day as a sinner, unfit to enter Your holy presence;

But I come boldly before Your Throne of Grace because Your Son, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour, shed His blood on the cross of Calvary for me.

He became sin for me so that I might become righteous for You.

I have sinned against You in the following ways:

[Here you may confess the major areas of sin of which you are guilty. You will become aware of others as time goes on, but that’s OK. Repentance is not a one-off event. It is a process.]

I am guilty and I am deserving of death, but I am casting myself upon Your eternal mercy and pleading for Your forgiveness.

I thank You, Father God, that You have heard my prayer and You have forgiven my sins.

Now, according to Your word, let the blood of Jesus Christ, my Lord, cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and let me be cleansed, sanctified, and justified in Your sight, as You have promised.

I now humbly confess that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is my only Lord and my eternal Saviour, and I am a new creation in Christ. The old ‘me’ is gone and the new ‘me’ is here.

Father, I am Yours, now and forever.

May the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, be glorified in and through me for the rest of my days.

Amen.

Welcome To The Kingdom Of God

If you have prayed from the heart that prayer, or one similar, then congratulations, you have been born again.

You may have felt something, or you may have felt nothing. What you feel is not what’s important. Remember, “by grace you have been saved, through FAITH” (Ephesians 2:8a), not through feelings.

The devil will try to persuade you that nothing happened, that it didn’t work. He is a liar. He is a deceiver. God heard your prayer. The deed is done. You are now a child of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I’m going to give you another ‘A’ word. This word is ASSURANCE.

As Christians, we enjoy ASSURANCE OF SALVATION. This means that so long as we continue to walk with God and be taught by God, our salvation is assured.

So, here is your first task as a disciple of Christ: memorise this verse and repeat it to yourself daily until it becomes a part of your being:

By the way, it’s always a good idea to read the whole chapter when someone asks you to think about a particular verse, because the context is important to get the full understanding of the specific text.

So, your second task as a disciple of Christ is: read all of 1 John chapter 5.