Newbie's Guide to Christianity: introduction
Welcome to the Newbie’s Guide to Christianity! If you’re here, I assume that you have just made the best decision of your life — following Jesus Christ, or coming back to following Him if you’ve been away for a while.
CONGRATULATIONS.
It is no exaggeration to say that the decision you just made will completely change your life in the best way possible. I, your writer, have been following Jesus for about 22 or 23 years now (since I was 7, with some recommitments at ages 15 and 20). It hasn’t always been easy, and it didn’t automatically make life a bed of roses, but it has given me blessings beyond what I can think or imagine. To sum up the impact of Jesus Christ on my life in one sentence is really hard — I could probably write a couple of books on it. But to sum up just some of the things that have happened:
I have a supernatural sense of self-worth. Because I belong to Jesus and I know I belong to Him, I don’t have to go around searching for self-worth from any other source. This has freed me from looking to fame, fortune, academic pursuits, games, sports or anything else in life to define myself. All of those things have failed me at some point, but Jesus literally never fails me.
I also have a massive sense of other people’s worth. Because I view every other person (Christian or not) as a precious soul who God created for good things, I am motivated to be compassionate to other people. I have given away money, time and energy in pursuit of other people’s happiness because that’s what Jesus did. And it makes me VERY happy to serve people and to satisfy Him while doing it.
I have a divine sense of purpose on my life. Though I don’t always know exactly what I am supposed to do, I have a guiding list of principles that help me make good decisions at every turn. I don’t live life just to exist. I know I was created by God with a purpose, and I spend almost every day doing my best to walk in that purpose.
All of these and many more amazing and beautiful things have resulted from my walk with the Lord. But I might have to let you in on a secret — none of them happened immediately.
A big misconception in Christianity is that you pray the Sinner’s Prayer, committing to Jesus, and then you’re done. You go to heaven, and that’s it. That’s only part of the story. Yes, heaven is a very good and very important part of being a Christian. But your Christian life on Earth — here, on this broken planet — is just as important! And God wants to have a relationship with you now, while you’re living on the earth!
A relationship with God is just like any other relationship — it has to grow. Whenever you meet a friend, even if you immediately click from day one, they don’t become your best friend on day one. If you only hang out with your “best friend” once, and you never talk to them again after that, they’re not your best friend; they’re just someone you got along with on one day. But if you continue to talk to your friend — sitting with them at lunch, planning hangouts, sending funny memes and texts, encouraging them when they’re down — that’s how you build a relationship.
A relationship with God is the same. You grow in your relationship with God when you talk to Him (also known as prayer), read his Word (the Bible) to get to know Him more, and apply what He tells you in your daily life. As you keep doing these things, you will grow in your trust of God, you’ll get to know Him more, and your relationship with Him will become strong. And as your relationship with God becomes strong, you will reap benefits. Psalm 103:2 says: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits.” You’ll find from reading that psalm that following God gives you many benefits. Chief among these benefits is having the God of the universe as your best friend for life.
Does that sound good? Let’s get into it!
This guide is meant to get you started on three things that will help you grow in your relationship with God. Every good Christian I know (and by good Christian, I mean the real Christians, not the fake ones who profess Christ yet somehow have none of His behavior) has these three things down pat. There are plenty of different ways of doing all three, but all of them are essential:
Being part of a good church community (parts 1, 2, 3 and 4)
These are the three parts of my guide; links to the blogposts are included above.
Have fun and be blessed!
A little disclaimer: I am not a trained pastor, theologian or minister, and I don’t claim to be speaking as one. I am just a Christian who has been in the faith for quite some time, and I wanted to make a guide to help new Christians get started. You should check everything I say with the Bible, and if anything I say contradicts the Bible, go with the Bible and not me. Also, I tried to make this resource very general and ecumenical (useful for all Christian backgrounds), but I do come from a Pentecostal/Charismatic background, just FYI.