Accepting God's Offer - Our Response
When we understand these things that the Bible teaches and believe them to be true, we are ready to respond and become a life-long follower of Christ. There are several steps we must take at this point:
- BELIEVE. We must acknowledge our belief in God as the creator and owner of the world, as the one who gave us life, and as the one who has rightful ownership over everything. (John 1:1-5; Romans 1:16-23; Colossians 1:15-23)
- ADMIT. We must admit to God that we have sinned and done wrong by breaking his laws, and in so doing, have gone away from the life and purpose he originally desired for us. We must also accept the consequences of our actions, and agree with God that if nothing is done, we will be separated from him forever at the end of our lives. (Romans 3:9-23, 6:23)
- TURN. We must next come to a decision in our hearts and minds where we decide to turn around or repent. This involves our decision to surrender our lives to his leadership, values and control and choose to follow him. Like signing over a title to a car or a deed to a house, we are saying "my life now belongs fully to you." (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:18-20, Acts 17:22-31)
- TRUST. Understanding that God sent Jesus to take the judgment for our sins, a debt that we could never pay on our own, we need to put our complete trust in him to be the Lord and ruler of our lives. This means we willingly confess our faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and our Lord and Savior and give him first place in our hearts. (Romans 10:9-13)
We can express this by talking to God in prayer saying something like the words below:
"Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins to bring me back to God. I ask you now to be the ruler of my life and I give you my heart as my Lord and Savior. Starting now, teach me how to follow you all my days."
- BE BAPTIZED. Having placed our complete trust in Jesus, we need to follow the example and words of Jesus to be baptized (immersed in water) in his name and receive his forgiveness and Spirit. This act is a vivid picture of surrendering ourselves to God and represents the putting to death of our old self and the way we used to live and the beginning of a new life dedicated to following Jesus and continually seeking after God. (Acts 2:36-41, Romans 6)
