How To

Become
a
Christian

by
Don Bryant

Jesus said that those who want God will have Him.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and
you will find; knock and the door will be
opened to you. For everyone who asks
receives; he who seeks finds; and to him
who knocks, the door will be opened.
(Matthew 7:7-10)
Thats not really true about anything else in life, you
know. Jobs we wanted and prepared for are phased out. Homes
for which we saved get priced out of our range. People we
wanted to marry say no. And people we married stop saying
yes. Health we worked hard to keep breaks. Children we love
can walk away. But the most important thing, the eternal thing,
the one thing we absolutely can not do without, is the one thing
that is guaranteed. God never turns away from an honest heart.
So this pamphlet is based on the truth that an honest
spiritual quest will be responded to by God Himself. God
doesnt play tricks with a humble and open heart. He doesnt
play cat and mouse. And He doesnt enjoy seeing people trying
to find their way out of a maze. God is the one thing you will
have if you want Him. Note this verse from the Bible.
I will be found by you, declares the LORD.
(Jeremiah 29:14)
I am writing this pamphlet as a person who has been on a
serious spiritual journey for some time, maybe even a little
longer than you. But I am still a fellow traveler after all. I
simply offer to you what I have found: that the road leads
straight to an encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. Sooner or later a
serious spiritual quest will bring you around to considering this
towering figure of history who said, I am the Way, the Truth,
and the Life. (John 14:6) Stick around and read the rest.
Listen. Really listen. Your soul will not lie to you. It will tell
you the truth.

WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN ANYWAY?

This pamphlet is designed to help you understand what it
means to become a Christian. Actually, Christian is not a
word I make use of a lot. It is a perfectly good word. In fact, it
is a word that comes straight from the Bible. But it is a word
that, like currency during inflation, has been devalued. Overuse
and careless use have changed the meaning of the word. It can
mean anyone of several things:

I go to church

I was baptized as a child in the church, and my parents

are Christians so in some sense I think of myself as a
Christian.

I have a high view of Christ and the Bible.

I agree with the moral teachings of the church.

I try to be a good person

What I mean by Christian is a person who has become a

Christ-follower. A Christ-follower is simply a person who has
experienced a serious and sincere encounter with Christ that has
changed lifes goal and lifes focus. A Christ-follower is
characterized by a faith that sees beyond circumstances, a hope
that endures trials, a life that inextinguishable and an obedience
to the will of God that lifts performance standards beyond the
average and humdrum practices of our culture. Being a Christfollower isnt just about which religion you believe. Its more
than that. Its about a relationship with God. In other words,
Christ-following makes a difference in the real world.
What follows arent my thoughts, though they are my
words. What you will read is based on the teachings of Christ
and of those who walked with Him. These teachings are found
in the Bible. I will reference these teachings from the Bible like
this - (John 3:16). John 3:16 refers to one of the books in the
Bible, the third chapter of that book and the sixteenth verse of
that chapter. You can look the truth up yourself if you have a
Bible. (And if you dont, Coastal Church will get you one
without cost). I am simply communicating to you what all
Christians of all times in all places have believed about the way
to life. Nothing new is here. Though when it is believed and
relied upon it makes us new.

LETS BEGIN HERE

God made us, and He wants to have a relationship with us.
No matter what science teaches us about chemical
processes that shape our physical lives and no matter how easily
God is discounted in the discussions of economists, business
enterprises, government leaders, counselors, or even neighbors,
we intuitively know we are spiritual beings. People world-wide
are incurably religious. Is this just a throwback to ancient times
that we havent yet learned to shuck? Even in western
technological society only 2% of the population are atheists.
Where does this incurable spiritual hunger come from? The
Bible teaches that we were created by God and that He gave us
the capacity and desire to know Him. I will use a series of
illustrations to picture for you the points made. This starting
point can be illustrated this way.

What I want to say is that your desire for more than just
material prosperity and pleasure is not some fantasy. It doesnt
mean that you have lost your senses and are in danger of some
kind of strange fanaticism. It is merely an expression of your
spiritual nature. Your desire corresponds to a real God. When
we are hungry and feel the desire to be full, there is food. When
we are tired and desire rest, there is sleep. When we are cold
and feel the desire to be warm, there is heat. When we are
lonely and desire intimacy, there is romance. And when we are
lost and feel empty, there is God. Though we might ignore this
part of ourselves for a long period of time as we are busy with
education, careers, raising families, hobbies or whatever, the
desire for something more pops up at the strangest times. In
fact, our spiritual nature is most clear when we actually get all
the things we want and still arent happy. We might even feel
guilty for not being happy, especially when so many others go
without the very things we have. If you are honest and ask
yourself why you are still unhappy, your very soul will cry out
that the whole world itself could not satisfy you. Only God can
fill the empty heart. Jesus said:
And how do you benefit if you gain the
whole world but lose your own soul in the
process? Is anything worth more than
your soul? (Mark 8:36)
Youre not becoming strange or weird because you are
considering spiritual things. Youre not on the edge of
becoming a fanatic or religious nut. Youre simply being
human, what God created you to be.

FEELING THE GAP

At the same time that we begin to feel deeply that we were
made for God, that He has answers for the human condition, and
that knowing Him is a serious and worthy pursuit, we
immediately sense another feeling: We are far away from Him.
This can be illustrated this way:

No matter how close we may sense Him to be, we are still

too far away. We sense a gap. What accounts for this? What
explains the distance I feel? The Bible teaches that the reason
for this distance is our own resistance to handing our lives fully
over to God. We have a natural desire to be the boss and to
ignore Gods principles for living. The Bible calls this sin.
This breaks our close relationship with God. It causes us to fear
Him and to try to live our lives outside of His will.
Listen! The LORD is not too weak to
save you, and he is not becoming deaf. He
can hear you when you call. But there is a

problemyour sins have cut you off from

God. Because of your sin, he has turned
away and will not listen anymore.
(Isaiah 59:2)
When our relationship to God isnt right and we live by
our own wisdom, it causes problems in every area of our lives
marriage, career, relationships, finances, etc. In fact, these very
problems are the means God often uses to wake us up to
something deeper that is wrong. And what is wrong is the bent
of our heart self-trust, self-sufficiency, self-will.

FILLING THE GAP

When people have problems, they often try many different
way of coping before turning to God.
They may just try harder, gut it out and ignore the pain. Or
they may think the solution is a different situation a change of
job, place, or even spouse. Some people turn to pleasure and
preoccupy themselves with travel, sports, hobbies, sex, drugs,
whatever. Some go into extensive therapy to probe their
inescapable sadness. As the Bible says,
There are ways that seem right to a man,
but they only end in death.
Prov 16:25
Even when we begin to sense that our deepest need is God,
we often try wrong ways of getting to know Him. Maybe you
can relate to the following phrases :

It doesnt matter what you believe as long as you are

sincere. Lets call this salvation by sincerity.
Ill give up all my bad habits. Lets call this
salvation by subtraction.
Ill work harder and do the things I should. This is
salvation by addition.
Ill go to church. This is salvation by religion

All of these have something in common. We end up never

seeming to do enough or be good enough. We dont even meet
our own standards, much less the standards of a perfect and holy
God. Our consciences still condemn us and we have no peace.
The sad fact remains,
All fall short of Gods glorious standard.
Rom 3:23
And the sad consequences remain, too. The wages of sin
is death. (Romans 6:23) This certainly is true physically all
die. But it is true spiritually as well. All spiritually die, and in
the world to come all are eternally separated from God. The
Bible calls this the second death. The Bible teaches in a very
clear way that our real danger is not what happens in this life.
Our real danger lies in the life to come where we live out the
consequences of our soul-shaping decisions made in this world.
This illustration pictures the futility of our efforts to reach God.

BRIDGING THE GAP

Things looks pretty bleak. But the good news is that we
matter to God. In fact, he loves us so much that he did for us
what we could never do for ourselves. He provided a bridge
over which we can find His forgiveness and restore our
relationship with Him. This Bible simply says that Jesus died
for our sins. (1 Peter 3:18).

The great truth is that Jesus of Nazareth came among us as

God the Son (who with God before He came into the world) to
offer his life on the cross for us so that the debt of our sin would
be paid. By paying the debt we owed to the justice of God the
way has been cleared for people who fall short of Gods
standard to have access to God and become His children.
Death is no longer our destiny but life life now and life
eternally. Jesus said:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
(John 10:10)
This is the crux of the Bible. This is the core of its
message. It is a book about how God has acted in and through
Jesus Christ to deliver us from the misery and hopelessness of
our sin. The religions of the world are spelled DO. But the
Bible spells religion DONE. It is the story of what God has
done for us. This is what God wants each of us to understand.
We know very well that we are not set
right with God by rule keeping but only
through personal faith in Jesus Christ.
How do we know? We tried itand we
had the best system of rules the world has
ever seen! Convinced that no human being
can please God by self-improvement, we

believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that

we might be set right before God by
trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be
good. (Galatians 2:15-16)

THE A,B,Cs
Does this mean that everybody has this life and will
receive the gift of an abundant and eternal life? No. Not
everyone has eternal life. The Bible teaches that this gift must
be received. It is not enough just to know or even agree. We
have to act on it. Only by an act of personal trust can one move
over across the bridge to the other side. This involves three
actions:

Admit admit that God has not been first place in your
life and ask Him for the forgiveness of sin. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from every wrong. (1 John 1:9) The life of Christfollowing begins with a humble admission that our own wisdom
has taken us away from God, not toward Him. This may sound
like a simple thing to do, but all of us know that its not easy.
And its not easy especially when we have waited a long time to
deal with the spiritual dimensions of our lives. The longer we
have waited the more we have invested in the way we have
lived.
Believe believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins and
that He rose again from the dead and is alive today as the Savior
of the world. If you confess that Jesus is your Lord, and you
believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you
will be saved. (Rom 10:9) Jesus conquered our final enemy,
death itself, and proved that He has the power over sin and all of
its consequences. Jesus wasnt merely a great moral teacher
who showed us a better way to live. He did more than teach.
He opened the way to Heaven by His own resurrection from the
dead. And He is able to deliver anyone who comes to Him.
If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me
and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the
Scripture has said, streams of living water
will flow from within him. (John 7:37)
This is obviously more than a bare belief in the facts about
Jesus. It is a personal reliance upon what the mind has come to
believe is true. A lot of people believe in Jesus like they believe
in George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. They believe they
existed and they know the great works they did. But they do not
rely upon Washington or Lincoln to do anything for them.
Believing means trusting Jesus alone for the gift of real life. It
means walking across the bridge God Himself has provided.

Commit Jesus said very simply Follow me. Invite

Jesus to come into your life and be the director (CEO) of your
life. All relationships are based on commitments. If Jesus is
who He claimed to be and can do what He claimed to be able to
do, then He is worthy of having all of our trust, greatest loyalty,
and full obedience. Jesus Himself said,
Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28
All of this begins with your personal invitation to the
living Jesus Christ to come in and take charge of your life.
Jesus says,
I stand at the door and knock. If anyone
hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in. Rev 3:30
YOU CAN TAKE THESE STEPS BY PRAYING A SIMPLE
PRAYER THAT MAKES A BIG COMMITMENT TO
GOD:
Dear Jesus, thank you for loving me, even when Ive ignored
you and gone my own way. I realize I need you in my life. I am
sorry for my sins. I ask you to forgive me. Thank you for dying
on the cross for me. Please help me to understand it more. I
give as much as I know about myself to as much as I know
about you. I want to follow you from now on. Please come into
my life and make me a new person inside. I accept your gift of
salvation, knowing that on my own I cannot earn it or deserve it.
Please help me now to grow as a Christian.
Whoever call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
Romans 10:13

SO, WHATS NEW?

You may ask, What has actually happened to me when I
invited Christ into my life to be my Savior and my CEO? In
response to your belief and trust in Jesus, God has given you a
new nature. Unlike the old nature this new nature is capable of
participating in the very life of God with all of its benefits and
blessings.
Your new life is not like your old life.
Your old birth came from mortal sperm;
your new birth comes from Gods living
Word. 1 Peter 1:22
This new life is powerful enough to overcome old,
destructive ways of living and being a dwelling place of God,
both now and forever. This is not a reformation of the old life.

The old life is subject to the principles of death. The Bible says
that anyone who is in Christ is a new person.
Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new
person. The past is forgotten and
everything is new.
2 Corinthians 5:17.
There is literally a new you. The Bible compares this new
nature you have received to a seed. Though it is small, maybe
even almost invisible, it is real. And it contains the very life of
God himself. Over time that new life grows to become strong
and fruitfulexactly because it is Gods life.
Your new life is not like your old life.
Your birth came from mortal sperm; your
new birth comes from Gods living Word.
Just think: a life conceived by God
himself! 1 Peter 1:23
Our natural, earthly lives dont in themselves lead by their
very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very nature is to
die, so how could they naturally end up in the Life Kingdom?
But because you now have Gods life in you, abundant and
joyful living is yours.
The great temptations that a new Christ-follower faces is to
underestimate the true miracle God has worked in this gift of
new life. Many people who make a commitment to Christ
observe that, contrary to their expectation, there may be no bells
or whistles going off. Life seems to go on much as before:
same responsibilities, schedules, challenges, temptations. But
the new life Christ gives is like the beginning and development
of a new child inside the womb. Though the life is not fully
developed, it is real and in time will show itself as vital and
mature. Nothing will be like it was before.
Now your great need is to grow that seed so that you more
and more become what God has enabled you through Christ to
be. Spiritual growth is not automatic. Though you will never
become more of a child of God than you are right now, you can
become a more mature Christ-follower with the blessings of
increased strength to face trials, fuller joy to overcome the
grieves of life, deeper love to serve, and a lively hope to always
convince us that the best is yet to come.
Now grow for it. God has made available to us the Bible
to instruct us. He has given to us His presence to comfort and
sustain us. He has given to us the privilege of prayer to provide
for us. And He has given to us the church to support us. These
are the means of growth.
Coastal Church provides training for spiritual growth
through the Life Development Process. Christ-followers are
moved through the bases, like the bases on a baseball field.
Through a series of four classes the basic habits of spiritual
growth are taught and modeled.

First Base is learning the ropeswhat Christ and Coastal

are all about. Second Base is developing the 4 habits that bring
spiritual power for living. Third Base is defining your own
personal mission in life through understanding your S.H.A.P.E.
(Spiritual gifts, Heart, Ability, Personality, Experiences), the
unique you that God wants to use to make a difference. Home
Base is learning how to impact the world with this life changing
Message.

Contact Coastal for the dates and times of these classes at 781871-3442 or visit our website at www.coastalchurch.com.

Coastal Church
145 Webster St. Suite i
Hanover, MA 02359
781/871-3442
www.coastalchurch.com

10