“I will never become a Christian!” I can vividly remember saying that on the morning of May 21, 1955, but before the day was over I was a Christian. You may have made a similar decision as I had, but what you need to realize is that all Christians were once non-Christians, because no one is born a Christian. What is more, very many Christians were just as determined as you are never to believe in Christ. So your position is not unique, nor necessarily unchangeable.

People give many reasons for an insistence never to accept the Christian faith, but perhaps the most common one, especially with young people, is that science has disproved the Bible and, therefore, to become a Christian would be to commit intellectual suicide. This sounds like a very reasonable and plausible argument. It appears to bypass emotion and faith, and rest on solid indisputable facts. But really it is a weak argument because the alleged facts of science are always changing. What scientists believed to be great discoveries of truth and fact fifty years ago, are now discarded for new truths and new facts. Science has a valuable part to play in modern life, but be careful that you do not make it into a religion and worship today what will be inevitably rejected in the near future. Has science disproved the Bible? In December 1974 Time magazine ran a cover story on the Bible. This was its conclusion:

“After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived - and is perhaps the better for the siege. Even on the critics' own terms - historical fact - the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than when the rationalists began the attack.”

No Christian need be embarrassed by what he believes. The intellectual suicide argument is shown to have no real substance when one reads statements like that of Professor T.L. More, a very vocal evolutionist: “The more one studies paleontology (the fossil record), the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone.”

A

CHRISTIAN?

A Christian is

someone who knows

he is a sinner.

There was a time when he would have denied it. There was certainly a time when it did not bother him. But it became a matter of real concern. A sense of personal sin and guilt is the first step to anyone becoming a Christian. If we do not face up to this and take our sin seriously, we will never become Christians.

A Christian is

someone who knows

he can do nothing to

deal with his sin.

Turning over a new leaf, pulling yourself up by your boot straps, trying your best, are all the remedies of religion. A Christian probably tried them all at one time or another and found them to be useless in dealing with his sinful nature. No Christian ever came to believe this quickly or easily. It goes very much against the grain of human pride, but, again, it is an essential stage in becoming a Christian.

A Christian is

someone who believes that there is

only one answer to sin.

The answer is the one that God provides for us. A Christian is a sinner who has been saved by the grace of God from the consequence and power of sin. Grace means that salvation is the free gift of God to sinners who deserve the exact opposite. God, in love and grace, sent Jesus His only Son into this world to take the responsibility of our sin. That involved taking our guilt and punishment, and when He died on the Cross, He died as our substitute, taking our place. Now God offers us salvation because of what Jesus did for us. This is the only way of salvation.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest for your souls.”

To “come” means to

believe in Jesus,

to trust what He did on your behalf and to commit your soul to Him and

look to Him alone for

forgiveness and salvation.

If you want to read more on this subject, please read the book

Become a Christian

by Peter Jeffery