What is a Christian?

A Christian is one whose life is centred on Jesus Christ.
A Christian is one who is part of a great adventure.

In short a Christian is one who has come to see that in and through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, God the Father has acted decisively to put the world to rights. In believing this, in the sense of trusting or putting the weight of one’s existence on something, the Christian is related, by the Holy Spirit, to Jesus Christ in such a way that they begin a new way of living.

This way of living is marked by faith, hope and love. It leads to a more truly human life as the Christian seeks in the power of the Spirit to grow like Christ in his character and ways of relating to God the Father, each other and the whole created order.

A Christian, on entering this new reality, is incorporated into God's people, the church, and joins in the adventure of participating in God's rescuing purposes played out in the whole of creation.

The Christian's supreme concern is to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to glorify or foster the reputation of God in the sight of all people. This means that, in identifying a Christian, one would hope to find someone who not only acknowledges their belief but demonstrates a concern for justice and, in particular, for the poor.

No Christian is perfect and the great message of God's rescuing forgiveness fosters an appropriate humility and releases the resources to keep going in learning to live the new life faithfully and as fully as may be.

Here are six amazing things about living life with a Christian faith and following Jesus:

1. Experience a fulfilled life of true freedom
Unlike the popular misconception that Christianity is boring and irrelevant, following Jesus is anything but boring. How can following someone who turns water into wine, hangs out with the oppressed, the marginalized and the poor, heals people and raises people from the dead be boring? Some might be of the opinion that being a Christian means following a whole bunch of rules that God has designed merely to rob us of freedom. Instead, God shows us, supremely in Jesus Christ, how to live life to the full. He shows us a way of living life whereby we can find true fulfilment and a way that does not hurt other people. It is a life of true freedom within boundaries. Imagine a football game without rules (boundaries). Players would be “free” to do what they like, but it would be chaos not fun. Only with good rules will the players be free to live up to their true potential, relate to the other players and really enjoy themselves. In Jesus, God demonstrates true wisdom for living life to its fullest.

2. Experience a personal relationship with the living God
Being a Christian is about being in a living relationship with God, the Creator of the whole universe. How awesome is that! The Creator of the whole universe is mindful of you; He cares about you; He loves you and He wants to be reconciled to you in a personal relationship. He wants you to join him in a great adventure.

3. Experience a life of meaning and purpose
Being a Christian is about coming to the profound realisation that we did not merely evolve by chance, but rather we were designed by God for a purpose; to be in a relationship with God and to reflect His image (i.e. reflect God’s love, compassion and justice). God’s image is supremely seen in Jesus Christ. A Christian’s vocation is, therefore, to follow Jesus and reflect his character. Just like Jesus came to serve others rather than being served, a Christian’s life is less focused on oneself and more focused on bring God’s love, compassion, justice and good news of reconciliation to a hurting world.

4. Experience profound forgiveness
Through being reconciled into a right relationship with God, Christians experience complete forgiveness, and will be set free from all guilt. This is similar to being reconciled to someone after an argument, when there has been awkwardness, guilt and regret. Yet the forgiveness that Christians find in God is even greater; it will be as though they had never wronged God: totally forgiven, completely restored and absolutely no guilt. Is there anything you would like to be forgiven for? A slate you would like to wipe clean?

5. Experience a life characterised by hope
Being a Christian is about living with a very real hope. For the fear of death is replaced with the hope of eternal life in heaven, where we will be in a perfect relationship with God. There will be no more sin, no more hunger, no more thirst, no more mourning, no more crying and no more pain.

6. Experience a new start
Being a Christian is about being made new. It is about having a fresh start. It is about changing for the good. Unlike the popular misconception that people cannot change, a Christian is someone who is in the process of being set free from old and destructive habits and is forming new habits, such as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. For on this adventure with God we slowly become more and more like our Creator, like a child reflecting their parent’s character.

 All of this, and much more, is only possible because of God’s gracious love demonstrated in Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension, and because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christians’ lives are also marked with great humility and thankfulness to their Creator and Saviour, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Would you like to join God in this great adventure? To start again? Some say that coming to faith is like always thinking the world was flat, and then realising it's round.

Through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension, God has decisively put the world to rights. Why did the world need fixing? Ultimately because humanity had turned their backs on a relationship with God and followed their own self-centred desires, rather than doing God’s will (the Bible calls this sin). The consequence of humanity’s dysfunctional relationship with God was that all people were alienated from God.ⁱ

This alienation resulted in evil, decay and ultimately death prevailing in the world.ⁱⁱ But then, because God loved the world so much,ⁱⁱⁱ God reconciled himself to the world through Jesus.^iv It was as if God said, "lay all the blame on me. Lay all the consequences of this dysfunctional relationship on me… I will pay the price for this mess." For on the cross, all sin, all evil and death came upon Jesus and he paid the price, in his blood, to put the whole world to rights i.e. to restore the world into a harmonious relationship with God that has no evil, suffering and death.^v However, God did not just pay the price of sin upon the cross, God also defeated the power of sin, evil and even death,^vi and therefore made it possible for all things to be made new again.^vii

Jesus' death on the cross paid the price to put the whole world to rights, but that also includes the price for our personal sin. For we all have been in dysfunctional relationship with God. We have turned our backs on God and have done things our own way rather than following Him.^viii But on the cross, God has dealt with sin and therefore has made it possible for people to be forgiven and reconciled into a right relationship with him. Therefore, on the cross, we firstly see the seriousness of our sin; Jesus had to experience death in order to deal with it.^ix Secondly, we see how much God loves us; He was prepared to die for us.^x Even if we were the only person in the world, Jesus would have died for you—that is how much he loves you. Thirdly, we see that God is not aloof and detached from the hurts of the world that are caused by sin, but rather he is intimately involved; He has identified with our hurt and pain.

Consequently, all you have to do to become a Christian is receive God's free offer of forgiveness and enter into a right relationship with him. You can do this by:

1. Thanking God for his amazing love, that He was prepared to die for you and make it possible to restore the relationship between you and Him.
2. Placing your complete trust in Jesus; believing that (1) in Him you can find forgiveness and be restored to a right relationship with God, and (2) that following him is the right way to live; the way of truth and eternal life. The Bible calls this faith.
3. Acknowledging and confessing that you have been in a broken relationship with God; that you have lived life your own way and have not followed God's ways.
4. Turning from following your own desires and anything evil to following Jesus. The Bible calls this repentance.
5. Asking God to send the Holy Spirit into your life so that you can be in a right relationship with Him and can become more and more like Jesus.
6. Starting the great adventure with God by daily following Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit…