Remix: Student Devotionals

Becoming a Disciple - Week 5, Day 1

What is a Christian? (How to Know You're Saved)

I went to church every week as a kid, and I sat in the back row and played tic-tac-toe or hangman or MASH. Remember that game? I didn’t really pay attention. I was certain that I would go to heaven because I had decent attendance at church.

One Sunday morning, the preacher was in prime form, and at least for a few minutes, he kept my attention because he was talking about a place called hell. He said hell was a place of sorrow and pain, a place of isolation where a person goes to burn in the fires forever.

I was scared to death. I was nine years old, and I just knew I was going to burn for all eternity. For six days, I walked around my house scared, certain I would never get into heaven. Finally, I couldn’t take what I was feeling inside anymore, so I went into the kitchen. It was a Saturday morning, and I cried out to my mom, “Oh, Mom, I don’t want to go to hell.” She looked at me and said, “Todd, I don’t want you to go to hell, either.” I was glad to hear that.

She ran out of the room and brought in her Bible and began to share with me that God didn’t want me to go to hell either and that He loved me so much that He sent Jesus to die for all the wrong things I had done, and if I prayed and asked Him to come and live in my heart then I would be saved from hell.

I thought to myself, sign me up. So I prayed in the kitchen with my mom and asked Jesus to save me from hell. She then told me that I needed to walk down an aisle in church and let everyone in the church know that I had asked Jesus to come into my life. I didn’t want to do that. I was afraid of that preacher. He yelled a lot and waved his arms a bunch, and that scared me to death.

Well, the next morning, when it was time to walk forward at the end of the service, my mom was sitting in the choir, giving me the evil eye. But I was scared, and as they sang each verse, my mom got more intense: You go forward now.

I stepped out into the aisle, and I started to walk down to the front. He asked me a bunch of questions about Jesus, and I said yes to every one of them.
· Do you believe in God? Yes
· Do you believe that Jesus is God’s Son? That He died on a cross and rose again from the dead? Yes
· Have you ever sinned? Yes
· Do you want to ask Jesus to come into your life and forgive you for your sins? Yes

I had no idea what I was doing. The preacher prayed for me, and then as the song ended, the preacher introduced me to the church as a new Christian. I had to stand up in front of the church, and then people came up and hugged me and pinched my cheeks and told me how excited they were for me. I went home and thought, That’s it. I have a ticket to heaven, not going to hell. Whew, that was a close one. No one showed me how to read the Bible. No one explained to me how to pray. No one told me anything. As a result, I grew up like anyone else who was a teenager.

You could no more tell that I was a follower of Christ than anyone else I went to school with. I had a filthy mouth, and I was always in trouble. God, to me, was a Sunday morning thing. You punch the clock for one hour, God is happy, and you go do what you want to do.

The defining moment of my life was in high school in typewriting class. Did you ever have a typewriting class? “A,s,d,f,j,k,l,; space.” I was sitting next to Natalie Bradford. She was smoking hot. I liked her a lot. I was telling her how much I would like to be with her on the weekend, telling her I wanted to get naked with her. Basically, I was being a jerk. When Bill Hill (that was his name), a 6’ 2” junior, with blonde hair and blue eyes—ugly kid—turned around in class and asked me if I wanted to know about how I could become a Christian. I said, “Bill, I am a Christian. I go to church every Sunday morning, sometimes on Wednesday nights too.” I will never forget what he said to me next. He said, “Why don’t you act like it?”

That rocked my world. I went home that night, and I asked my mom to help me find a Bible. That rocked her world. When my mom finally came to, we found a Bible under my bed. I think my cat had thrown up on it. It had a couple of fur-balls on it.

Once I started reading, I couldn’t put my Bible down. I began with the book of John, and at first, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And I’m like, “Word to your mother.” But once I got past the first chapter, it started to make sense.

I was so desperate to find out who God is and who Jesus is that I read and read and read.

I got to chapter 14, and Jesus was speaking. He said, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”

And then a little further down, Jesus said in verse 21, “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me.” And then in verse 23, He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching.”

It was at that moment that I realized that I knew a lot about Jesus, but I didn’t know Jesus personally. Anybody here know about the president? Anyone here know the president personally? There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone. I realized at that moment that I didn’t love Jesus, and I didn’t know Him.

Becoming a Christian is more than just praying a little prayer. It’s about laying down your life and loving Jesus with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. You see, to truly be a Christian, there are three things that every person must do.

ADMIT THAT YOU ARE A SINNER.
BELIEVE THAT JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS.
COMMIT YOUR LIFE TO HIM.

Imagine going to a wedding and watching a groom on his wedding day look at his beautiful bride, and with a tear in his eye, he speaks words of devotion “... forsaking all others until we are parted by death.” You’re moved by his words and the decision he has made. But imagine if the next week you find out that while the newlyweds were away on their honeymoon, the groom was unfaithful to his bride. Suddenly those words would hold no value. They would be worthless. You would conclude that those words he emotionally expressed and publicly declared meant little because he didn’t back up his words with his life.

There is not a single verse of scripture in the Bible that says you can be a Christian and live your life any old way that you want to.

Let me just ask you. Are you following Him, or are you doing your own thing? Do you truly have a relationship with Jesus, and is there enough evidence in your life to convict you of being a Christian?

If you aren’t sure, make sure you talk to your student pastor or adult student worker as soon as possible. You want to be sure about something as important as this. If you are sure you have a relationship with Jesus, then read on and get ready to be blown away by all the things God wants to do for you and all the great things you get to do for Him.

TIME OUT

1. Has there ever been a time in your life when you asked Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior? When? What happened?


2. What evidence should there be in a person who claims to have a relationship with Jesus according to the following verses?
A. 1 John 3:10 says, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” What is the evidence in this verse?


B. 1 John 4:21 says, “And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” What is the evidence in this verse?


C. Now you look up the next two verses in the Bible and find the evidence mentioned in them. Here are the verses.
1. 1 John 1:6: What is the evidence?


2. 1 John 2:3: What is the evidence?


3. Are you sure that Jesus lives inside of you?


4. What are some of the reasons people give for not trusting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior?

Memory Verse:

 "And we can be sure that we know Him if we obey His commandments."

1 John 2:3