How to Be Sure You're a Real Christian 3. Christ's Answer Because our sin has separated or disconnected us from God, we have been left with a God-shaped vacuum, or spiritual emptiness, within. As Augustine put it, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” The world’s many religions are all evidence of man’s endless search to find God and fill this vacuum. However, because God loved us so much, he sent his own sinless Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our predicament.6 Christ did this by dying on the cross in our place to pay the consequence of and ransom price for our sins—death. Thus, Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for our sin, and he is the only way back to God and the only door into eternal life.7 God's Word, the Bible, says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men.”8 Had there been any other way to save mankind, Christ wouldn't have had to die for us. Because he was without sin, he was the only one qualified to die for our sins.  4. Your Invitation If you were found guilty of a serious crime and were condemned to death, and if offered, would you accept a free unconditional pardon? Because of Christ’s dying for us, that’s what God offers us, and with it the gift of eternal life. All we need to do is to accept his pardon. Here’s how to do this: First: Confess. God’s Word says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.”9 Second: Repent. That is, we need to turn from sinful and selfish ways to follow God and his ways. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe.”10 That is, we need to turn from sinful and selfish ways to follow God and his ways. Third: Believe. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,”11 declares the Word of God. Fourth: Receive. God also said, “To all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”12 Admitting your sinfulness, believing that Jesus died for your sins, inviting him into your heart and life as Lord and Savior, and accepting God’s forgiveness is what makes you a real Christian. The following prayer will help you do this:
5. Here's Great Assurance If you genuinely prayed the prayer to invite Jesus Christ into your life and truly meant it, you are now a true Christian and have the gift of a new spiritual life as well as eternal life. You are also a child of God and a member of his family.13 God promised this. Choose to accept it. Take it by faith and not feelings. Feelings change but God’s Word never does. God’s Word says, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”14 When you pray to receive Christ into your life, you have a brand new spiritual life and this life needs care and nurturing just as your physical life does. 1. John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 2. John 10:10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 3. Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God 4. James 4:17: Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. 5. Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 6. Ephesians 2:8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. 7. John 14:6: Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 8. 1 Timothy 2:5-6: For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men - the testimony given in its proper time. 9. 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10. Mark 1:5: The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 11. Acts 16:31: They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.." 12. John 1:12: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God 13. 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
14. 1 John 5:11-13: And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in teh name of teh Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. By Richard Innes, Copyright ACTS International. Used by permission. www.actsweb.org
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