Tips for the New Christian

2017-01-21

If you recently believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and were born again, you may have a lot of questions. Here are some basic things that are necessary to do as a Christian so that you can learn about how to live the Christian life.

Go to Church

God commands us to be with other believers. It is a place of learning, worshipping God, and friendship. The Christian life cannot be done in a vacuum; we were created for community and the local church is the vehicle that God uses to accomplish His mission in the world. Read more here.

Where to Find a Church

This is not always an easy thing. There are many kinds of churches out there, and they do not all teach the Bible. Many of them teach works salvation or have other teachings that contradict the Bible.

A Google search or the local phone book will help when looking for churches. You need to get their hours of meeting, and then physically go there. I wish there were a better way. When looking for churches in your area, and you see “Baptist” in the name, it is most likely somewhat close to teaching the Bible correctly, though there is no guarantee. Here is a list of things I think are important.

Baptism

Baptism is a public proclamation of our identification with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It does not contribute to our salvation, but it is an ordinance that pictures our salvation. The church you attend can help you with this. For more information on baptism, go here.

Bible Reading

While there is a lot of good teaching that takes place in the church, the main teacher of the Bible is the Holy Spirit, who indwells every believer. Consider the following:

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (1 John 2:27)

The Holy Spirit is able to teach us “all things.” Even when in church, we receive instruction, but we also have the duty to make sure that everything taught is from the Bible. We need to read and study the Bible for ourselves. Here are some tips on how to read and study the Bible, as well as here and here. The Bible is the only source of truth that we have, and everything that disagrees with the teaching found in the Bible is wrong.

Prayer

Prayer is simply talking to God. There are a lot of elements to prayer, which include thanksgiving, asking Him for the things that we need, and confessing our need for and dependency on Him. Read more about prayer here.

Confess Sin

As born again believers, soon after being saved, we will find ourselves doing some kind of sin. In the initial hours of being saved and being excited, we may think that we will never sin again. This is extremely wrong, and when you do sin, you will be extremely disappointed. That was the way it was for me, even for years afterwards. The Bible says:

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

We know that we have been forgiven of all our sins. We read our Bibles, love our neighbors, and go to church, but in the midst of all that, we may sin. It may even be really bad. But Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, is also our advocate. The work He did on the cross is still finished and we’re still saved. But God tells us what we need to do if we do sin:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

We just admit to God that we sinned. If we sinned against someone else, then we need to confess to them also.

Renewing Your Mind

Whatever that goes into our minds really affects who we are and what we do. If we fill our minds with a lot of terrible, ungodly things, we will likely live the same way that we did before we were saved. However, if we fill our minds with the Bible, we will believe and live out the truth every day. Read more here.

Sharing Jesus

If you are a Christian, someone somewhere gave you the gospel message of salvation. Someone told you that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead. Now that we know that Jesus saved us from sin, Satan, hell, and death, it is our duty to share this information with others so that they can be saved.

Let us consider the following:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (Romans 10:13-15)

Somebody must go out and tell others about Jesus. Most Christians do not tell anybody about Jesus. This is not a job for somebody else out there. It is our job. More about this here.

Conclusion

These are some of the main things that we need to mind as Christians. Having it all together is something that takes many years of doing the things above. If you consider the above, the rest of the truth about the Christian life will come with time.