How to believe in Christ?

Whatever may have been your previous acquaintanceship with the person of Jesus, you have come, as it were, to hear his call, “Come, follow me”. Like those in the Gospels, you arose and followed him. It was a personal decision; you may not have understood too much about what it all involved, but you decided to open your heart and you asked Jesus to be your Saviour.

When out for climbing in some great mountains, it is indispensable to procure the services of a guide: the situation may prove perilous ahead. As you journey through life you may now have the services of Jesus, the only reliable Guide to human living at its best. You may trust him to lead you in the right path. There is no better Spiritual Master.

Jesus made numerous promises to those who would believe in him. That’s not simply to believe he existed, nor even to believe he was the Son of God, though these facts about him are foundational. Rather he was referring to a personal commitment between the believer and himself.

When I came to believe in Christ, the evangelist compared what I was about to do to the way a young couple get together. He said that the guy likes the girl and wants to get to know her over time, learning to love her, and desiring to enter a long-lasting relationship. “But,” he said to me, “the two are not married until they stand before the minister who asks them “Do you want to have this woman (or man) to be your lawfully wedded spouse?” In the same way, he said, Jesus says to you, “Do you want me to be your personal Lord and Saviour?” Then he asked me, “What do you want to say to him?” I acquiesced: I wanted to believe. Then he added, “Whenever anyone asks Jesus, ‘Do you want to accept this sinner as your disciple?’ He never says no!”

Maybe like me, you prayed that the Lord would “come into your heart” and save you. After I left the evangelist, I went for a walk, thinking that I had made an important decision that day. It was Easter Sunday afternoon, and I felt that as one “dead in trespasses and sins” I had now become alive in and with the risen Christ (Ephesians 2.5).

So to “believe” in Jesus has that kind of meaning. He promised “eternal life” to those who believe in him (see John 3.16, 5.24, 6.47, 11.26). Eternal life is the gift of God; he gives it as we believe and receive Christ as Saviour and Lord, committing ourselves to him, to follow and obey as our new friend and Master.

If I asked you, “Have you believed in Jesus like that? Have you received him as your Lord and Saviour?” – how would you reply? It helps our faith when we tell someone else that we have decided to follow Jesus. This is sometimes called “confessing Christ” and it allows you to exteriorise before a friend the decision that you have taken in your heart.

If you’re not sure if you’ve actually taken that step, there’s no harm in turning in prayer, just by yourself, and saying, “Lord Jesus, thank you for coming into the world to seek and save the lost like me; I open the door of my heart and receive you as my Lord and Saviour. Help me from now on to grow in my faith and to live as a Christian. Amen”

Jesus will gladly welcome you as his follower.

Clive Every-Clayton

June 24, 2024 0

What is this new Life in Christ?

The Bible says we are to welcome those who are not yet strong in the faith, and as a mature believer I would welcome you if you are starting out as a Jesus-follower. New believers require help in reorienting their lives, both to understand what it’s all about, and to discover the steps towards spiritual growth.

A new believer, returning into her habitual milieu, was asked after a while, “What’s happened to you?” She didn’t need to say she had turned to Jesus, but it became evident to her friends by a certain joy and peace that now characterised her life. But how would she – or you – answer that question: what’s happened to you?

Well, the first thing that I trust has happened to you is that You have heard the good news of Jesus.

Whether you heard it on the internet, in a local meeting, or read it in a book, you have come to understand that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1.15). This is the essence of the Good News (which is what the word “Gospel” means). It is good news because we are all to some extent sinners and therefore we all need to be “saved”.

When Jesus’ mother Mary was still a virgin, Jesus’ arrival by a miraculous birth was announced to Mary by an angel. Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, was stunned and confused by the news, until he too had an angelic visitation. An angel appeared to him in a dream, explaining that it was God’s miraculous work that had made Mary pregnant: “she will give birth to a son,” said the angel of God, “and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1.20-21).

Jesus came, therefore, to save people from their sins. When you heard this message, you began to understand that in God’s sight you were in the category of “sinner”. Probably this was quite a humbling experience – no-one likes to be called a sinner; but the Bible is clear: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). None of us is perfect as we should be; we all have a bad conscience and know we have done wrong.

Not only that, but you were made to realise that you were in a serious predicament before a holy and just God. You needed his forgiveness. Then you heard the Good News, the essence of what the apostles preached: “Christ died for our sins… and was raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Though our sins deserved God’s just punishment, Jesus stood in for us and bore that penalty by dying “for our sins” on the cross. This is the message that Jesus wants diffused throughout the world: “preach the Good News to all creation”, he said, adding, “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved” (Mark 16.15-16).

As you heard this message, you were encouraged to turn to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. You opened your heart to him in prayer and faith, calling on him to save you. You put your trust in Jesus and he welcomed you as one of his followers, his “disciples”; this essentially means a learner, an apprentice in the art of good living. Your new life had begun, developing into a process of spiritual growth.

At Jesus’ school there is a lot to learn: spiritual growth, like physical growth, takes time; the important thing for you today is to say to yourself, the process has begun.

Clive Every-Clayton

June 24, 2024 0

Blog new orientation

Up until now on authentichopeforanswers.com I have sought to enlighten those in the darkness of secular materialistic thinking, to save them from their incipient hopelessness by pointing to the only True Source of valid, true, fulfilling answers – the One and only true living God, revealed in Jesus Christ. I thank those who have been following me and I hope you have found my writing helpful.

I have become aware of what seems to be a cultural movement away from empty atheistic answers; thinkers these days want something more serious and solid on which they can build their lives. I hope my posts add a small contribution to this fresh hunger for Truth to satisfy the heart as well as the mind.

Glen Scrivener comments on this new openness to the Christian worldview, that people are more open to wanting to check out the Bible, find out more about Jesus, and some have started attending church. A friend locally has typified that movement from discontent with superficial answers to grasping the life-giving truth of the biblical Story, and it makes me think and hope that out there in the blog-reading world there may be others who, having found the Christian answer more satisfying, desire to become followers of Jesus.

I want for some time to come to reorient this blog therefore, so as to help such new believers who may or may not have much background knowledge of biblical things. Having turned to pray to Jesus for light and salvation, these believers have set out on a new path; but for many it is unknown territory. There is a lot to learn as a new believer, and it takes time to assimilate all the blessing we receive through faith in Christ and what exactly is the life that Jesus calls us to when we trust in him.

As I give thought to the forthcoming posts, I envisage maintaining the orientation of giving authentic answers, but no longer so much addressing those still in the mists of vain relativistic ideas and scientific materialism; rather I will seek to deal with the questions of those who set out on the new path of faith in Jesus. I will seek to answer the key question a new believer might ask: “What exactly is the new life in Christ?” I will share advice that helped me as a young believer, and some essential truths revealed in the Bible that will help the Jesus-follower to grow both in faith and in living as a child of God.

To live in harmonious relationship with God, as I have often mentioned in previous blogs, is the real purpose of our existence. To find this is to enter into the fulfilling life that God envisaged for us in his love when he created us. While the mass of humankind drifts far away from such a relationship, those who hear Jesus’ call, “Follow me” and respond with repentance and trust in the Saviour, start out on a life where at last they begin to find and fulfil the meaning and purpose of our lives.

St Augustine said it well long ago in a prayer in his “Confessions”: “Lord, You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You”. Jesus invites everyone to come to him and learn of him, promising that rest of soul (Matthew 11.28-30). Through his saving work, and through faith in him, believers experience that rest of soul; they will enjoy it and develop it as they learn to walk with Jesus day by day.

Clive Every-Clayton

June 24, 2024 0