Where are you in your walk with God?
If you're new to even the subject of Christ, then the very first thing you need to do is to allow yourself to be open to the possibility that Jesus Christ was (and is) the very real Son of a very real God, that He was in fact God Himself, that He lived a sinless life, that He was punished and killed not for anything HE did but for OUR sins, and then most importantly that He was raised from the dead on the third day, for the express and dual purposes of proving HIS divinity, first of all, and then secondly, in doing so He proved that it CAN be done and that the resurrection of the dead awaits us as well.
The key to becoming a Christian is to acknowledge that you are a sinner. Over the course of my lifetime, I've lived through five decades of "I'm okay, You're okay!", taking the concept of accepting each other into the concept of almost deifying each other. We are not the gods here. We all have terrible, terrible flaws of one kind or another. And not just the prisoners, the politicians, and the lawyers, either - every single person who's ever lived - EXCEPT for Jesus Christ. Not because He was a special man: because He was also God incarnate.
Because we are sinners, God (being holy and perfect) cannot accept us into Heaven as we are. He therefore had to have a sacrifice made to make restitution for our crimes. Christ is the only One Who could have paid that sacrifice, because He didn't have to pay it for Himself. Therefore, He could pay our penalty for us.
If you read my essay "Saturday", linked here, you'll get a sense of how and when the Lord Jesus Christ took on our tonnage of sins, carried them through the punishment He received from Pilate up through the crucifixion, and released them so as to free US from that punishment when we die. All we have to do is ACCEPT His Lordship to accept His sacrifice on our behalf, and our price is paid! If we choose NOT to accept it, that's our right - but then we must pay for our own sins. And there's only one way to do that.
God literally did everything He could possibly do to keep you out of Hell: He even paid your price of admission to Heaven for you. All YOU have to do is thank Him for it, and you're free. Simple.
Will you do it? Or will you pay your own price out of stubbornness?
If you have just recently come to salvation, let me say, welcome to the family! You've just recently made the most important decision of your entire life - more important than who you marry, what career you chose, or anything involving your children. Because any decision of that sort affects you for (at most) decades. Saw in the news recently of a couple who made it to their ninetieth anniversary before the husband passed away - aga 110. She was only 103, so she must've been just thirteen when they got married in Punjab, British India (at the time). But no matter how long the marriage, it's nothing compared to eternity in Heaven. Or Hell, depending on the choice you've made.
And since you've made the right choice, the safe choice, the only one that makes sense in the long run, you will find that it reshuffles your priorities in your life. When others who are not yet saved visit with you, you'll find that the Great Commission now takes on a vibrancy, a life of its own within you. It's no different than if your neighbor was in a housefire - you'd almost certainly try to save their lives if you could, wouldn't you? Well, odds are that your neighbor is in a similar life or death type situation: if they've not put their faith in Jesus to save them from the fires of Hell. (I can hear the answer now: "I can make my own decisions about my own life, thank you very much!" Well, you can but the consequences are similar to the house fire.)
Those who tell Christians "live and let live - let us have our beliefs and you can keep yours" don't understand that our beliefs include saving the ones we love from damnation. In fact, that's our NUMBER ONE belief.
Smart Christians know you don't win the unbeliever by beating them over the head with Christ. You share your faith by LIVING your faith, every moment of every day, until they see the joy that YOU have regardless of circumstance, the joy that the Holy Spirit fills you with, the appreciation of God's gift of life now and forever after. And when they see what your love of Christ has done for you, they'll naturally want a piece of that. And THAT'S when they're open to hearing how they can be saved.
If you have been a true Christian for awhile now, and you feel secure in your salvation and your Christianity, there are undoubtedly still many new avenues of your walk to traverse:
HOW WELL do you know your Bible? If you can't quote Scripture without having the Book handy, how do you battle the demons who attack you because of your strength as a Christian? Learn Scripture! Read the entirety of the book, and memorize key passages that you might use for your own strength and to share with those around you under attack.
HOW 'VERTICALLY ALIGNED' are you? If you're not feeling like you're constantly in connection with the God of the Universe, are you going to be able to call on Him when you need Him? Prayer is not a one-time-a-day thing. "Pray without ceasing," Paul writes in 1st Thessalonians 5:17. (see? Know your Scripture!). I hold conversations with the Lord as if He is walking beside me at all times - because essentially, He is!
HOW 'IN TOUCH' are you with those in need? The poor? The needy? The widowed? The homeless? Leaving a fiver in the plate on Sundays is barely a start. Do you want to be a sheep instead of a goat when the great white throne judgment comes? Help those who cannot help you. Don't help for show - help without thought of reward, because you cannot hide anything you do from the Lord, and He rewards with consideration to how much reward you receive on earth. "
Here is Matthew 6, verses 1-4 ...
1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
HOW much do you devote yourself to GOD, and how much to the WORLD?
This is my project this year - the Lord slapped me on the head with this one last month. "You will never be happy in the world because you have too much Christ in you, and you will never be happy in Christ because you have too much of the world in you." Or, as another sermon I heard that day put it, "PICK A LANE! Are you going to live for the LORD, and get your reward, or live for the WORLD, pick the pleasures of the culture around you, and deal with the consequences when you die?" Living in between is the worst of both worlds!
Regardless of where you stand today, challenge yourself to come closer to Him this month. From today until the end of February is 21 days, which is the classic number of days required to form a habit. Choose your next step, and take a step of faith and move forward.
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