Becoming a Christian

The first question regarding becoming a Christian is why?

God is a Holy, just and merciful God. We are told in His Word that “

all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom 3:23)

We are also told that

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23)

Because God is Holy and just, He must punish sin. Because He is merciful, He has provided the payment for our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross so that we would not face eternal damnation in the lake of fire.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (Joh 3:16)

There is nothing that we can do to work for, or earn eternal life. It is a free gift from God, but it must be accepted. In order to do this, we must:

Believe in the one true God
Acknowledge our sinful nature
Repent of our sins
Ask God to forgive us and accept the payment for our sins by Jesus who was crucified and rose again
Once we have accepted this payment in faith, we have eternal life

Paul writes:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)

We can therefore be assured that nothing can take the salvation away from us.

James fleshes this out a bit more by saying that “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” (Jas 2:17)

Jesus also affirmed this by stating that you will know them by their fruit. In other words, if there is no change (no repentance) it shows that there is no faith.

Solomon writes: