 What is a Christian?
A Christian is someone who, recognising that they are not in a right relationship with god, has turned from doing things their own way ('sin'), asked for forgiveness through Jesus (God's Son), and given Jesus control of their life by inviting Him to take charge. How does it work? Christians use a lot of phrases to describe the process (eg. 'make a commitment', 'coming to faith', 'giving your life to Jesus'). All these terms are ok, but they only describe our side of things. Jesus said that we must 'be born of water and the Spirit'. There is something that we do in handing over our lives (as represented in baptism), and there is something that God does as we do this, in that He makes us into new people by giving us His Holy Spirit. Becoming a Christian involves a decision on our part, at which point we are met and empowered by God who completes all things by His Spirit. A simple prayer In practice this means that to become a Christian we need to follow some very simple steps in the form of a prayer. In this prayer we can simply talk to Him just as we would to a friend: Admit - we need to admit that by taking control of our own lives, and perhaps acting in ways that we shouldn't, we have stolen God's rightful place - this is what the Bible means by the word 'sin'. We need to hand His rightful place back to Him. Believe - we must put our faith in Jesus as God's Son, believing that He has dealt with the dreadful consequences of our sin. He has put things right by His life and death, and saved us from eternal death and separation from God. We must ask for and accept His forgiveness and come home! Hand Over - we have to hand over control of our lives to Jesus, asking Him to make us new people made in His image. To use the Bible's words, we must make Him our Lord. If you want to explore in more detail what becoming a Christian means, why not check out Soul Searching? Alternatively, find out more about what Christians believe here ... |