How do I become a Christian?

A man, whose story appears in the Bible in Acts chapter 16, once asked this question, “What must I do to be saved?”

The first thing to notice is that he felt that he needed to be saved. He knew that there was a God. He knew that he was a sinner and was facing judgment when he died. He knew that the people he was speaking to had a message about how to be saved. He wondered what he should do to be saved from sin, judgment and hell.

The answer was a simple summary of the Christian message, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

Let’s consider the issues this raises.

1. Believe:

To be saved, or to become a real Christian is based on believing. Most people think it is about doing something to make amends for the past. They think they must appease God in some way by doing better, trying harder, giving more. The Bible tells us we are to trust someone else to save us. If I was drowning and I cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer might well be, “Wait and do nothing. I am coming to save you. Trust me. I’ll get to you in time and rescue you.” If I really believed that person, I would stop trying to save myself and let him get hold of me. I would be passive. He would be active in saving me.

There are two aspects to believing in Christ. When I was a child, my father would play a game where we had to jump down into his arms from a  high point. We would fling ourselves into space because I believed two things about him. The first is that he was able to catch me. The second was that he was willing to catch me! These are the two aspects of faith which every believer in Christ has. We believe He is able to save us, because He has died to pay the penalty for our sins, and has risen again as evidence that sin is paid for and death is defeated. However, we also believe He is willing to save us. Jesus says, “Whoever believes” will be saved. He came to save sinners. We believe He is both able and willing to save anyone, no matter what their past, and He calls us all to come and receive Him as Saviour.

2. On the Lord Jesus Christ:

To be saved we believe in someone. The important thing is not that we believe something, but believe in someone. Many people have things they believe are true, but to be saved you believe and trust in a Person. Let’s think about how He is described.

  • the Lord:

To be saved, you trust the Person who is Lord. There is no doubt that this is a problem to many people. How can Jesus be both God and Man? How could God become Man and yet remain God? Yet, the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation that Jesus Christ is Lord. John’s gospel opens by saying that He was both with God and was God, and that He became man. (John 1:1-12) Thomas was one of the disciples. He doubted many things, but he never doubted that Jesus was his Lord and His God. He said so.

  • Jesus:

To be saved, you trust the Person who is Jesus. God became a man. His conception, birth, life, death and resurrection are described in detail. He was hungry and thirsty, weary, and sad. He could eat, sleep, be punched, nailed to a cross and sweat and bleed and breath his last breath. He was a true man who had come to live the life we should have lived and die the death we deserve to die. You must trust Him to be your Saviour, and you must not trust anyone else. Some try to tell us that Mary can help save us, or that some other good person can give us some of their goodness, or that some other prophet has the key to heaven. Some even teach that Jesus was an angel who became a man and then went back to being an angel. Others teach that he is the child of a sexual relationship between God and Mary. The Bible does not teach any of that, but tells us how Mary, without marriage or immorality conceived the baby.

  • Christ:

To be saved and become a real Christian you trust the Person who was promised by God. Moses first wrote of Him in Genesis 3:15 and from that point on the promised Messiah or Christ is described in ever clearer detail. 800 years before He was born it was stated that Bethlehem would be His birthplace. His life, betrayal by a friend for exactly 30 pieces of silver, denial by His disciples, His death with thieves, and a rich man’s tomb are all prophesied. 1000 years before He came it was stated that His hands and feet would be pierced at the time of His death. But even more clearly, the promises about Him as the promised Saviour describe that He would die for the sins of others.

It is by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ that you shall be saved.

Take time to read two of those prophecies about the promised Saviour. Part of Psalm 22 written 1000 years before Jesus died. It describes the physical scene of crucifixion in amazing detail. Then there is Isaiah 53, written 800 years before Jesus died. It focuses more on the other side of the suffering of Jesus. He died being punished by God so that we might be free.

If you know the story of the crucifixion, you would think they were written after Jesus died, but they had already been written down for centuries. They are one more evidence that the Bible is the Word of God, that Jesus is the promised Saviour, and that He came to die so that God could be both just and merciful.

Psalm 22 (Click to read and listen online)

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”
9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet—
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O LORD, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked — But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

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