What's a Christian?
The best way to answer the question, 'What is a Christian?', is to look at the teaching of Jesus Christ. People are sometimes surprised when they discover what Jesus actually taught.
Quite simply, a Christian is someone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Saviour and turned to him as their Lord, and who now seeks to live their life loving him and obeying him. A Christian trusts Jesus as the only way they can truly know God and receive his forgiveness now, and the only way they can truly be with God and enjoy eternal life beyond death.
Two Ways To Live...
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple - simple enough to be outlined in a few pages.
Click here for an online presentation.
A little more info...
Jesus once said that he came 'to seek and to save the lost'. (You can read that in the Bible, in Luke's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 10.)
Jesus is saying that we have all got 'lost' in our relationship with God. We are creatures, and God our Creator made us to relate to him. But we've gone our own way, and tried to make up our own rules for living. We are rebellious creatures! It's no surprise that things have got messed up. And both the world around us and our own lives bear the scars of our broken relationship with God.
So we've got a problem - we're imperfect, and there's no way we can go to be with a perfect, holy God when we die. If we die as we are, what awaits us is the awfulness of eternity cut off from God.
But God has given us a wonderful way to come back to him. God became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus came, as he said, 'to seek and to save the lost'. Jesus lived a perfect life - he didn't deserve to die. But he was executed, by being nailed to a wooden cross, in our place. We deserve to be cut off from God, but instead Jesus was cut off from God for us. As he died, he experienced being cut off from God: he shouted, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'. That leaves us wonderfully free - we can be forgiven by God for having rebelled against him, because Jesus has taken away all the punishment that we deserve.
But Jesus wasn't cut off from God for ever. Three days after Jesus' death, God raised him back to life, and he now reigns over the world, with God, as king. That means that there are only two ways to live. We can live our own way, rejecting the forgiveness that Jesus offers us. The result is that God will remain a mystery to us now, and we will be cut off from him forever when we die. Or we can put our trust in Jesus, and accept him as our king. If we do, our relationship with God will be restored now, and we will assuredly be with God beyond death.
How do I become a Christian?
We don't become Christians by trying to do good or to help others, because none of us will ever be good enough, however hard we try. Instead, a Christian is someone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ, and now bases their life around him and his teaching.
A good way to explore this more is to get hold of a Bible (a modern translation is best). Don't start at the beginning (you might get bogged down!). Instead, read Mark's gospel, in the New Testament (it's the shortest gospel). Read a few paragraphs each day. How should I respond to what I am reading?
Jesus' message to us is basically simple, but people rightly often have many questions. Feel free to contact us, and we will endeavour to answer your questions about the Christian faith.
To find out more click Christianity Explored.
Quite simply, a Christian is someone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Saviour and turned to him as their Lord, and who now seeks to live their life loving him and obeying him. A Christian trusts Jesus as the only way they can truly know God and receive his forgiveness now, and the only way they can truly be with God and enjoy eternal life beyond death.
Two Ways To Live...
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple - simple enough to be outlined in a few pages.
Click here for an online presentation.
A little more info...
Jesus once said that he came 'to seek and to save the lost'. (You can read that in the Bible, in Luke's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 10.)
Jesus is saying that we have all got 'lost' in our relationship with God. We are creatures, and God our Creator made us to relate to him. But we've gone our own way, and tried to make up our own rules for living. We are rebellious creatures! It's no surprise that things have got messed up. And both the world around us and our own lives bear the scars of our broken relationship with God.
So we've got a problem - we're imperfect, and there's no way we can go to be with a perfect, holy God when we die. If we die as we are, what awaits us is the awfulness of eternity cut off from God.
But God has given us a wonderful way to come back to him. God became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus came, as he said, 'to seek and to save the lost'. Jesus lived a perfect life - he didn't deserve to die. But he was executed, by being nailed to a wooden cross, in our place. We deserve to be cut off from God, but instead Jesus was cut off from God for us. As he died, he experienced being cut off from God: he shouted, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'. That leaves us wonderfully free - we can be forgiven by God for having rebelled against him, because Jesus has taken away all the punishment that we deserve.
But Jesus wasn't cut off from God for ever. Three days after Jesus' death, God raised him back to life, and he now reigns over the world, with God, as king. That means that there are only two ways to live. We can live our own way, rejecting the forgiveness that Jesus offers us. The result is that God will remain a mystery to us now, and we will be cut off from him forever when we die. Or we can put our trust in Jesus, and accept him as our king. If we do, our relationship with God will be restored now, and we will assuredly be with God beyond death.
How do I become a Christian?
We don't become Christians by trying to do good or to help others, because none of us will ever be good enough, however hard we try. Instead, a Christian is someone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ, and now bases their life around him and his teaching.
A good way to explore this more is to get hold of a Bible (a modern translation is best). Don't start at the beginning (you might get bogged down!). Instead, read Mark's gospel, in the New Testament (it's the shortest gospel). Read a few paragraphs each day. How should I respond to what I am reading?
Jesus' message to us is basically simple, but people rightly often have many questions. Feel free to contact us, and we will endeavour to answer your questions about the Christian faith.
To find out more click Christianity Explored.
