Becoming a Christian

Becoming a Christian How do you become a Christian? What happens when you become a Christian? Do you need to become a Christian? Can anyone become a Christian? Big questions like these don’t have simple answers, yet becoming a Christian isn’t complicated, nor is it only for the well educated or intelligent. Christianity has a universal appeal, because it puts man into the right relationship with God, and the rest of mankind. Of course if you don’t believe in God, then you probably won’t see the need to become a Christian. However atheism is a minority belief, (or lack thereof) and always has been historically. Mankind has always sought to know God, and get on the right side of Him. I became an atheist at the age of 13, and remained so until I became a Christian at age 17. However I remember as a child always wanting to know about God, and never questioning His existence, even though I never went to church, and neither of my parents believed. There may be an exception to this observation, but I have not encountered it; and that is all children under the age of reason seem to instinctively believe in God, and have a desire to know Him. Why is that? Well it stands to reason that if God made us, then He must have a good reason to do so, and that is most likely because he takes pleasure in a relationship with us, which in fact is what the Bible says. (Proverbs 11:20) Hold on I hear you say, the Bible?? God?? Creation?? Isn’t that all just antiquated superstition? Well, everything has to have a prime cause. I’m typing this on a computer that someone designed. The language and alphabet I’m using were designed. We all accept this, so is it logical to believe that the most incredibly complex organism in the universe, us – me – you, came about by mere chance? That the universe itself just appeared out of nothing? Really? Sure, something had to be there that did not have a prime cause, as the source of everything else that does have a prime cause, but one can hardly point to balls of rock and gas spinning around each other as the prime cause! Mankind in general has always believed that the prime cause is God1 (with a few exceptions along the way from time to time), because all of creation screams out amazing design and incredible intelligence, and awesome unbelievable power! (Hebrews 11:3) I find it really strange that atheists not only don’t get this, but that they as a rule consider that they are smarter than everyone else for not getting it! Still, there is hope; this atheist got it - eventually. If there is a God, and He made us, and the world, surely He would leave us an instruction manual? How to relate to Him, how to relate to each other, how to live, a bit of info about Him, and what He requires of us, and offers us? Well He did, we call it the Bible, or God’s 1 Pantheism is probably a post Babel development, evolving amongst groups of scattered isolated peoples, struggling to make sense of a dangerous world, and a fragile existence. Even so, behind most pantheons was a vague concept of an unknown remote all powerful being to whom all the gods gave obeisance.

Word. How do we know its God’s word? Because it does what it says on the tin, which is all of the above and more. Now here is a strange thing. You would think that we would be pleased and grateful to have God’s word to instruct us, and help us along, but not so! People constantly try (without success) to prove it wrong2. They disbelieve it, they ridicule it, accuse it, and attempt to marginalize it. Why is that? When you buy a new gadget, you are happy to get an instruction manual, and to read it. Why not the Bible? I suspect it is because we don’t like being told what to do, even if it’s for our own good! You may have noted, that the same young child that is happy to believe in God, is not so happy to obey his parents! It seems to be a fatal flaw in our makeup. But hold on, the Bible says that when God made us, it was very good. (Genesis 1) So what went wrong? Well as it happens, the answer to that question is also the answer to the questions in the first paragraph above, and reveals God’s amazing plan for you and me, and His provision for every problem that afflicts us! Now before we go any further, a short message to those who don’t have problems and issues that afflict them. I’m really happy for you, and there is no need for you to read any further. This is for everyone else. NO. Does a child learn to say this before Yes because it’s one letter less, or for some other reason? Most parents will agree that it’s not because little Johnny is linguistically lazy, but for some other reason. Little Johnny has a big will, and wants his own way! He may be feisty, but at least he is not a doormat. That’s how God made us. God has a free will, and believe it or not has set boundaries for Himself, over which He will not cross. For example He will not lie – ever. He could if He wanted to, He is God almighty, and can do ANYTHING. But He won’t do something just because He can, and is answerable to no one;3 He only does what He has decreed He can do within His boundaries, which are His Laws. As we are made in His image, He expects the same from us. Little Johnny doesn’t realise the rules are for his own good, he just wants his own way. We are without excuse, we know why we have rules, yet often still want to flout them, to get our own way. God calls this sin. We call little Johnny disobedient, rebellious; yet we are no different. Genesis 3 records the first time Adam and Eve sinned. The thing is God is very generous. Even little Johnny would probably manage this. Imagine you had a freezer full of ice creams of every imaginable type. There was just one however that you said he wasn’t to touch. He could have everything else. If he touched the forbidden one ( it was iced Gin and Tonic) he would be denied the whole freezer full! It’s for his own good, he’s too young to handle a Gin and Tonic ice lolly! I think Johnny would cope with this scenario. He might struggle when the freezer was empty though! But the trees in the garden would never run out, and there was only one (that they were too “young” to handle) that was denied to them. You can hardly accuse God of being unfair! 2 Sceptics stick their necks out and deride things mentioned in the Bible as myth, because they don’t know of any co-oberating evidence from other sources; until to their embarrassment a new archaeological find verifies the Bible account. E.g. Sodom and Gomorrah, the Red Sea Exodus, the plagues of Egypt, and many others. 3 Contrast that with dictators, kings and emperors who manage to acquire absolute power. They often cast off all the restrictions that apply to everyone else, and indulge their every whim and perverted fancy!

How we are made A little diversion at this point would be useful, to understand something of our design, and how we function as sentient beings in God’s image. God has certain attributes that he has shared with us in our design. These are self awareness, creative intelligence, moral awareness, will, emotions, and time awareness. Out of these arise the complexity of human nature. We have three separate distinct but interrelated characteristics; they are body, soul and spirit. The body is self evident, and provides the sensory input to the soul, which in turn has a close interface with our spirit and body. The soul comprises the will, mind and emotions; the spirit comprises our conscience, intuition and ability to commune with God at a level beyond that of the soul. If you read Genesis 3, you will see many of these God given characteristics come into play as the devil manipulates Eve into disobeying God’s command. Her mind is stimulated by her senses, her will is activated by the desire that arises, and she decides that the lie whispered in her ear is plausible and therefore believable, and so she suppresses her conscience and acts with her body. (James 1:15) We all know that we frequently make decisions at an emotional level, and even where we do employ reason, it is often influenced by our emotions and prejudices contrary to the facts or evidence. (Which is why jury selection and isolation is such an exacting process) Eve was no different, and Satan knew it. If the lie is what your desire wants to hear, your reason can fall apart, and your conscience is suppressed. It is noteworthy that this tendency is very pronounced in children, (which is why they need discipline) and becomes less so as we get older, providing we exercise our will to grow and mature. Those who for whatever reason fail to do so, usually end up in the criminal justice system as their desires run out of control; and exercising their will to satisfy those desires at any cost, they end up in conflict with society and its rules and laws. Addiction is simply the eventual result of this process. We read in Genesis 2:7 that God breathed into man, and he became a living being. God gave life to animals, but only breathed into man. Why? Humans are fundamentally different to animals, not just qualitively. Yes we are vastly more intelligent, but many animals are very intelligent. That does not make us different, but better, like a Ferrari is better than a Fiat, but they are still both cars. We are not animals, because we have a spirit, which is what God breathed into Adam. The Hebrew word for breath is Ruach, which is also translated as Spirit. So God put His spirit into Adam! Now we take lawbreakers out of society. When Adam sinned - disobeyed God, he was banished from Gods presence, and locked out of Eden. God is holy, and sin cannot be allowed in His presence. (Exodus 33:20) Gods Spirit was withdrawn from Adam, and so Gods life was withdrawn. God is the source of all life, and He has everlasting life, He cannot die. This life was Adams inheritance until he sinned. So God withdrew His Spirit from Adam, and Adam died spiritually, and began to die physically. It took over 900 years, but eventually he did die, as do all of his descendants. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

Now here is an interesting statement; “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,…” (Ephesians 2:1) What does that mean, “dead in trespasses and sins”? Surely the very fact that the statement is addressed to people who are evidently alive (otherwise why speak to them?) is contradicting the very statement itself? Not at all. Remember we have a spirit? It is that that is dead. Separated from God, our spirit is dead to His Spirit, which is its ultimate life source. Now we still have a spirit, but it has ceased to function as designed. As I write this, my cucumber plant is dying. There is still a cucumber on it, but pretty soon unless I remove it, the death that is spreading up the plant will reach the fruit and it will rot. That is essentially what is happening to our spirit apart from God, its life source. The three functions of our spirit, conscience, intuition and communion with God are rotting away. They may still have some function, but it is very feeble. Take our conscience for example. The design is that our conscience tells us what is right and wrong. Part of our design is that we share Gods moral awareness. So our mind is supposed to be governed by our conscience, and consequentially do that which is good and right at all times. However what actually happens is that our mind often overrides our weak dying conscience, and does what it wants, regardless of the consequences!4 (1 Timothy 4:2) The same with our intuition. In reality the intuition we have is pathetic, even more so in men! It more often than not fails us. (Just think of how many people are conned every day.) What should happen is that with an unbroken connection to the Spirit of God, our intuition would flawlessly inform our mind of every perilous situation or course of action, and our lives would be so much less problematic! This is where we come to Regeneration. (Please Read John 3, and Ephesians 4:23 and 2 Corinthians 4:16) These passages are all talking about the same thing – regeneration. Having recognised the problem of the human condition, here we are presented with the solution. It’s fairly obvious really; if something is dead it needs new life. If it is broken it needs fixing. There really is nothing mysterious about regeneration or new birth, its Gods solution to our terminal condition. It comes in two stages, the regeneration of our dead spirit now, and the resurrection of our dead body when Christ comes again in glory with His saints. (1 Corinthians 15) But there is an obstacle and a condition. The obstacle is our sin, and the condition is our repentance. We must do the latter to have the former removed. God is not in the manipulation and control business, that is the devils domain. God will never coerce you into doing anything. He made you in His image, and that includes autonomy – free will. He will never override that. There is a scripture that poses a 4 The best way I can describe this is to liken it to a body with a dead brain on life support. There is still some function there, but divorced from any control. The dead spirit has a conscience, but with a severely limited functionality, as it is divorced from the Holy Spirit which gives it life and direction. Thus there is a loss of sensitivity (variable from one person to the next) and ambivalence to the constraints contained in the Bible.

rhetorical question; “can the leopard change its spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23) Neither can we get rid of our sin. It is that deep rooted, and is a part of our nature. Some people don’t like this, they think that they can by modifying their behaviour earn a ticket to the eternal life party. They might have some success convincing others, but God is not fooled. Jesus put it this way \"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) So when the Bible says that adulterers will not inherit eternal life, (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) the adulterer cleans up his act, and is now okay? No, because the adultery is still in his heart, and his eyes feed his hearts desire. Even if he manages to never actually sleep with another mans wife again, he is still an adulterer! (Matthew 15:19-20) So at heart it is a problem of the heart! We need a change of heart – literally! But we need to ask for it. We need to come before God in repentance for our sin, and ask for His forgiveness, and receive the new life that He gives to us. To a mind used to acting on the data received through the bodies senses, this smacks of mumbo jumbo. It looks like a virtual transaction, but in the spirit realm it is very real. If we limit ourselves to what we can see, hear, touch, smell and taste, we are missing out on the whole point of our existence. So we need to do this by some other means. We need FAITH. (Read Ephesians 2:8) Hold on there, faith is not the missing sixth sense! Faith is God’s gift to those who ask Him for it. It is above our reason, and if we cannot accept that, we will never have it. By it we believe that the worlds were formed by God out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3), and by it we please God (vs6). Without faith we cannot please God, and we cannot receive His salvation and new life. That’s the way it is, don’t try to figure it out, you never will! Faith is reasonable, but reason is not faithful! The devil appealed to Eve’s sense of reason, and look where it got her. Would that she and Adam had put faith and obedience above reason and desire! Well, we are where we are, and God is certainly not at fault, but He has provided a solution by the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. And it’s free, to all! (Romans 6:23 and 5:18) So we come to the one question posed at the start that is not yet quite answered fully. That is, “What happens when you become a Christian? Well the first thing that happens, is that we are given new life in our spirit. The Bible calls this the new birth, or being born again. (John 3) We have the curse of sin (which is death) removed from our life, we are adopted into the family of God, and we are assured of a place in His kingdom for evermore. ( See 1 John 3:14, Galations 4:5, John 14:2-3)

Those things are all acts of God on our behalf, and gifts freely given to us. We don’t need to do anything to earn them or obtain them. How wonderful is that! Everything else however is essentially down to us. For example, we understand the word of God primarily in our spirit through faith, rather than our powers of reason or our natural intelligence, (although these do play a part.) (1 Corinthians 2:9-16) But in order to benefit from this newly bestowed insight, we first have to pick up a Bible and start reading, which is an act of our will in obedience to God! If we wilfully neglect the discipline of reading the Bible, we will not benefit at all from this gift of God! This is a principle that applies to every area of our life as a Christian. God provides what we need, but we have to avail ourselves of it in faith. (Galatians 5:22-23) Do you need patience, or peace, or joy? These are fruits of the Spirit, freely available to every Christian, but we do actually have to pick them, they won’t just magically appear whenever we need them. It is actually our decision to be patient, or to be at peace, or full of joy. Obviously deciding to be something, and actually getting there are not the same thing, but once we make the decision, the Holy Spirit will enable us to bring it into reality in our lives. “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3.) This is the mistake that many Christians make; they think that they must muster up the resources themselves to be what God wants them to be. They then start walking in the flesh instead of the Spirit, and by sight rather than by faith. This is a hard route to take. We are all different. We have different genes, circumstances, histories, strengths, weaknesses, talents etc. If we walk in the Spirit, we will always be where God intends for us to be, which is actually the best place for us. It may not always be where we think we should be at the time, but we need to resist the temptation to chivvy God along a bit, and set the pace and direction ourselves. That results in a walk of sight rather than of faith – and remember, that without faith it is impossible to please God, or indeed to be rewarded by Him! (Hebrews 6:11) For example; you may have a friend, (Christian or non Christian) who seems to be at peace with themselves and the world nearly all the time, whereas you struggle to have any peace. Now God has promised us that we would have peace, so what is going wrong? You are a Christian, and yet the unbeliever seems to have something you lack! Have you considered that without patience you cannot be at peace? Try to be serene while indulging in some form of road rage! Maybe you are naturally an impatient person? Perhaps you are an achiever, someone who gets things done, in spite of the obstacles. Patience is not much needed here. Your friend however might be one of those serene souls who seem to glide through life with a permanent smile on their face! Hardly anything disturbs their peace, but then they have a lot of patience. They would make a good nurse perhaps, but not so good an administrator. So perhaps God is asking you to seek after the fruit of patience first, and then peace will follow. God will never withhold anything good from us, but His order of doing things may be different from ours. We should, like Paul try to be content in whatever state

we are in, but always eager to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to a better place. (Philippians 4:11; and 3:14) Jesus said something very interesting (well actually everything He said was very interesting!) “I am telling you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) What does this mean? The religious leaders of Israel were renowned for their exacting religious perfection. How can we exceed that? Well the first thing to acknowledge is that they were pros, and by comparison we are amateurs. The second is – don’t go there! Their righteousness was of the flesh, and in Gods sight was no better that a filthy rag (menstrual cloth) (Isaiah 64:6) However we will never do better in the flesh, we must walk in the Spirit. Only the imputed righteousness of Christ is acceptable in Gods sight, and that exceeds anything the religious leaders of Israel could come up with! We must walk by faith, for without faith it is impossible….. you get it? So as long as we are walking in the Spirit, by faith, we are exactly where God wants us to be, and it is there that He meets with us, and feeds us exactly what we need to grow. Comparisons with others while we walk with God are futile. If we walk in the flesh however, we will naturally use others as a yardstick against which we measure our progress. Some will make us feel good about ourselves, and some will make us feel inadequate. No peace or joy there then! If we walk with God, we will hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21) Then there is our “old man,” our sinful nature. If our sinful nature is the soil, then guilt is the fruit. Christians often have a problem with guilt, while their non Christian friends cruise through life without seemingly giving it a second thought! Why is this, and is there a solution? The reason I think is because as a born again Christian our conscience is alive and active. Add to that the word of God which we now read, and the spotlight is really focussed on our thoughts and actions. Thoughts are difficult to control, but the issue is whether we agree with them or not. If we own them, take them onboard and agree with them, then we are only an opportunity away from putting them into action. If we reject them, we will find like an annoying fly, they will eventually go away. If we are being continually plagued by unwanted thoughts that offend our conscience, it may be because the enemy has occupied ground we have in the past ceded to him, and he is entrenched there. In that case, ministry may be required, but either way, the issue needs to be identified, and repented of. Only in this way will the enemy be removed, and the plaguing thoughts cut off. The Bible commands us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2) If we want to do Gods will, this is essential. If we want to have our minds renewed, (literally

made over anew), we must make sure we do not conform to this world5. This is radical stuff. As Christians, this is Gods best for us. He will not force us, but neither will He take a back seat and allow us to screw up the new life He has given us, without placing obstacles in our way, to try to bring us to the place where we willingly allow Him to lead and guide us. In other words, even though the life of a Christian is by no means a bed of roses, we can make it a path strewn with rocks and potholes if we wilfully disobey God, and sideline His word. Your non Christian friends can more or less do what they like, all the time adjusting their consciences, or suppressing them, in order to remove any feelings of guilt. The world doesn’t do guilt any more. Its solution to guilt is to reinvent it or kill it off. Christians shouldn’t do guilt either, but for a different reason; we have been forgiven, and it’s nailed to the cross! As long as we walk in the spirit, and do not fulfill the desires of the flesh, (our old nature) we are promised a guilt free trip, and an abundant life. (Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Timothy 1:5 & John 10:10) I have observed two different ways Christians walk after the flesh. One is where they fail to take responsibility for their walk with Christ, and leave it all to Him, in the mistaken belief that that is the spiritual thing to do. This can sometimes be a reaction to the other way, which is seen by them as religious legalism. In this way, Christians try to do it all themselves, and their walk becomes a joyless religious observance, laced with legalism. The first can become shallow and superficial, the second rigid and in the event of inevitable failure bring condemnation. To walk in the Spirit is a description of a joint effort; we walk, and the Holy Spirit leads us and enables us. When we do, Paul offers us this assurance; “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit”. (Romans 8:1) We are redeemed, we have been redeemed, we are being redeemed, and we will be redeemed. God started this process, and He will finish it, but we are responsible for progress in between. If we walk in the Spirit, our redemption will progress, but if we walk in the flesh, it will stall. The devil wants us to walk in the flesh, and will spare no effort to persuade us to do so, because he knows that is how we can be brought under condemnation and defeated. (At this point it would be good to read Romans 7 &8.) Although our spirit is resuscitated when we are born again, our body is not. That will have to wait for the resurrection, when it will be raised a glorious body, like Christ’s glorious post resurrection body. In the meantime we find we have a situation of conflict between the desires of the flesh and those of the spirit. Our mind is in the middle of this struggle, which is why it is essential that it is renewed. Only when this happens will we begin to see transformation of our flesh to bring it into line with our spirit. Our spirit exercises influence over our mind, and our mind over our body. However when we are walking in the flesh, that process is reversed, and our body influences our mind, which in turn suppresses our spirit, 5 John exhorts us to not be in love with the world. (1 John 2:15-16) If we do, God’s love will find no room in our hearts. Conformity with the world will render our witness and faith useless. The first step in this process is I believe to elevate the opinions and agendas of the world above the Word of God. Then we walk by sight, not by faith, which is to say, after the flesh and without God!

and the result leads to sin. (James 1:14-15) This is the sinful nature that Paul is talking about in Romans. Our experience of salvation is a mix of walking after the flesh, and after the Spirit. We are up, and we are down. We are frequently vulnerable to temptation and sin, and yet we often gain the victory and put to death the works of the flesh. As we progress in our walk with God, the balance shifts away from our flesh and in favour of our spirit. The devil knows when and where we are most vulnerable, and piles on the pressure at those points. When we are in the Word, or in fellowship, encouraging one another, or in worship, we are stronger and more able to gain the victory; which is why it is essential for our walk with Christ to pursue these things diligently. On the other hand, if we neglect these things, the balance moves in favour of our flesh, and we succumb to temptation and sin more frequently. This is the essence of the struggle of the Christian life. We all love to have our ego stroked. A good school report is eagerly handed to our parents, whilst a bad one is kept hidden until we have no choice but to reluctantly produce it. Our ego is in direct opposition to the will of God for us, so will go to extreme lengths of deception to avoid being rumbled. The devil knows this very well, and has used that knowledge to bring about the downfall of many who once walked with God. You have heard of the handsome hunk who thinks he is God’s gift to women? What about the gifted musician who thinks the Kingdom is blessed indeed to have her talents, or the clever theologian who thinks the church should recognise his remarkable insight? Or the pastor of the mega-church that has grown from a hundred or so souls to over 5000 in just a few years of his gifted ministry? The devil just loves a challenge like this! He knows just how to bring them down; appeal to their ego! The ways are many, but they all boil down to stroking the ego. Paul must have had a giant ego before he was saved. He was from a prominent wealthy family, who had Roman citizenship. He studied at the school of the foremost religious teacher of his day, and was apparently a star student. No doubt his bedroom wall was covered with awards and diplomas. Yet after he became a Christian he penned these words! “But what things were gain to me, I counted loss for Christ. Without doubt I count all things but loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but refuse, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. That I may know him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death; if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.” (Philippians 3:8-11) This is what is needed to have a renewed mind, to be transformed, and to live in victory over the flesh and the devil. Kill your ego! Or at least deal it a mortal blow, so that it is ineffective. Avoid stroking it at all costs! I knew someone once who thought he had a gift of preaching that the church desperately needed. He did preach a few times, and believe me he didn’t! He asked the pastor to give him more opportunity to preach, but was denied. As a result he left the church and they went elsewhere. A few years later I heard they had divorced and he was no longer attending church. Sadly the church has many stories like that one to tell. (Romans 12:3)

“For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in every way tempted as we are, yet was without sin”. (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus was a man, He gets it. He understands our weaknesses, because He suffered from the same things. The reason He is able to offer us salvation, forgiveness, redemption and regeneration, is because He overcame the human condition. He put to death His ego, his flesh, even His bodily needs, and was victorious over sin. If you are a parent you will know your children are far from perfect. (If you don’t, you are in for a shock!) When they fail, do you say “told you so” and leave them to it? No, a good parent will always offer whatever help they can, in spite of the child being headstrong and disobedient. Would God do less? (Matthew 7:11) Sure, we screw up, but where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. (Romans 5:20) God is always there for us, always willing to forgive us, providing we repent. If we don’t repent and turn to Him, we are walking in the flesh, and will find our fellowship with Him broken. Restoration is only a “sorry” away though! (1 John 1:9) As long as we are walking after the Spirit, we are headed in the right direction. The speed of our progress is down to us. If we put to death the flesh, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, we will speed up. If we pander to our flesh, and neglect the discipline of prayer, fellowship, worship and study, we will slow down, and even eventually stop completely. If we don’t kill our ego, it will cripple us, or even perhaps kill us! If we do kill our ego, or at least render it ineffective, we will be able to walk after the Spirit, free from guilt, legalism, and the burden of a religion of works. “So then, seeing we also are surrounded by such a great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily troubles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)