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I am a follower of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Perhaps you've also heard the term "born-again Christian." Maybe that immediately makes you think "fanatic" or "weird-o." Movies like Jesus Camp and Saved! certainly don't help that stigma. That term came from a conversation Jesus had with a religious man named Nicodemus in the Bible, in John 3. ... Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." Basically this means that in order to enter into God's kingdom, you must tell God that you are willing to leave your old sinful life behind (let it die), then ask God to give you new life grounded in Jesus Christ (be born again). This thought is continued in 2 Corinthians 5:17 which says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" This is all well and good, but the question still remains, "What have I done that is so bad that I need to be born-again anyway? I've been a pretty good person--above average probably. I think the cosmic good-outweighs-bad scale tips toward the good side for me." Well, God hates sin and refuses to stand in the presence of any sin whatsoever. That means that one step outside the boundaries God has created and you are a sinner. So God cannot stand sin. Since we've all sinned, how can anyone ever stand in God's presence? That's where Jesus came in. He came to earth to take away the sin of the world. He bore all of God's hatred toward sin on his shoulders so that we would be free from that wrath. There is nothing we can do without Jesus that would allow us to be forgiven by God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." That means that you cannot say that you are saved because your good-versus-evil scale has come down on the side of good--you cannot boast that you saved yourself. It is only through grace, or the acceptance of God's free gift, that you can truly be saved. This is all summed up in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So if you recognize that you need Jesus, what to do next? Well, you must first be willing to leave your old sinful ways behind. Believing in something is easy. I believe that if I worked really hard in the stock market that I could make more money than I do now. However, I am not willing to put forth the effort to learn good investment skills. So it is not enough to simply believe; you must ask Christ to take over your life and rule over it. You must be willing to let go of the sin in your life. Only then will you be saved and once you are, you can be confident where you'll end up when you die, you can experience the joy in living that is given through Christ alone, and you can honor God with your life, because it's ultimately about him, not you, anyway. Check out the order though: you don't have to clean up your life yourself before coming. Jesus accepts you for who you are and he will do the work of changing you. In Romans 5:6-8 the Bible talks about how much easier it might be to die for someone who is nice and pure (righteous) but for someone who is still steeped in sin; who would want to die for that guy? Jesus would, and he has. He once came into the middle of a situation where a crowd wanted to kill someone who was caught in adultery (the appropriate punishment in Jewish law). Jesus forgave this woman caught in adultery, and his words were "Go now and leave your life of sin." He forgave her first, then told her to leave her life of sin. He didn't say, "go prove to me that you can be good for a while then I'll see what I can do for you." Ephesians 2:8-9 was quoted above, but verse 10 says that we were created to do good works. We can start truly doing good works out of joy and thanksgiving once we recognize and accept Jesus. That needs to come first. Otherwise our good deeds are "as filthy rags" and we're back to that whole good-versus-bad scale again that wouldn't get us anywhere. For more complete answers to some of the questions that are raised here, check out Christian Answers website. Also feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions. We have a bible study that you are welcome to attend. Following are some direct links to common questions:
Is the Bible true?
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