Before you say, “I don’t believe.” Chapter 34

Would you be willing now to ask Jesus to become your Lord and Saviour right now, and with His help start to follow Him?

God’s love for you is so great, His willingness to bring you into a relationship with Himself has gone to such lengths, His patience with you so enduring, His ability to forgive you and make all things new so powerful, your need of Him so absolute, and His invitation for you to join His family so powerfully demonstrated, that I would encourage and urge you to turn from all that keeps you from Him, and ask Jesus to become your Lord and Saviour. A person gets married as they speak words of commitment to their would-be spouse. Similarly, becoming a Christian happens when you take to God words, but these are words of repentance and faith, trust and commitment to Him. You could pray with words like this:

O God, thank You that you know everything there is to know about me. I want to say that I am sorry for all my sin. With Your help I want to turn from it. Thank You for Your love towards me. Thank You that Jesus came into the world, to live, and then die paying the penalty for all my wrongdoing. Thank you that He rose again from the dead. Please forgive me. By Your Holy Spirit, come to live in my life. Please become my Lord and Saviour  forever. Help me to follow Jesus and become more like Him. Thank you for hearing this prayer, which I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

If you have genuinely prayed this, God will have heard and will answer. God in His Word has promised that. Take time to start to cultivate your relationship with God, and begin to enjoy the wonderful, new adventure of walking through life with God. I recommend the daily, dogged, delightful discipline of meeting with God for a time of reading the Bible and prayer. Reading the Bible book by book (maybe starting with the Gospels) allows God to teach and speak to you; as you pray, you in turn speak with Him. As you get involved in a Bible-believing church (sadly, not all of them are), you will be able to worship and serve the Lord in the community and security of God’s people. Church is a great family in which to grow strong in the Christian faith.

Genuine Christians don’t confine themselves to the church family. They want to serve others, and to let them see and hear how Jesus has changed them. I love the privilege, and you will too, of sharing with others the good news of the gospel: that God has loved us, despite our rebellion against Him, and sent His Son to suffer, die and rise again so that we might know Him throughout life, through death and then into eternity. Christians love Jesus, because He first loved us and gave Himself for us on the cross; now we love telling others about Him.