by Melody Bish

Created on: April 12, 2011

Being a Christian involves far more than attending a church, reading the Bible and being a "nice" person.  While the path to becoming a Christian differs for each person, the steps required are the same for all and clearly delineated within the Bible.

To start, I believe it is proper to note that, in depicting the means by which one becomes a Christian, I am concurrently providing the path to being saved.

At the core of Christianity is the need for one to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and that, through Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection - and victory over death - He serves as propitiation for all of our individual sins, as well as all the sins of every person who has ever lived, or will ever live. Moreover, after accepting Jesus and His great sacrifice, each must admit him/herself as a sinner and request the forgiveness only Jesus' blood can provide.  For it is only by clothing ourselves in Christ's sacrificial blood that allows God the Father to see us free from our sins and accept us both as Christians and into an everlasting life with both He and all the Saints in Heaven.

But these beliefs alone are not sufficient to fully encompass life as a Christian and assurance of life everlasting. While teaching during His time on earth, the Pharisees, leaders of the Israeli Religion, questioned Jesus as to which of the Ten Commandments issued Moses during the period in which the Israelites wandered in the desert is greatest.  Jesus clearly responded, "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 23:39-40)

Becoming a Christian, then, involves mental, spiritual and active terms.  The acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior and admission that one is a sinner revolve, I believe, around mental understanding of the scriptures, followed by spiritual seeking of further understanding and forgiveness through earnest seeking and prayer.  Christianity is active in that Jesus' requirements that each of us love the Lord "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."  The mental and spiritual terms of Christianity along with the active terms well reflect the teaching that faith without actions is dead.

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