What is a Christian?
A Message from Billy Graham
More than anything else, I yearn for people – including you –-
to understanding the message of Christ and accept it as their own.
I recall an old Methodist preacher who came to the London crusade. "I have come here every night for ninety-three nights," he told us, "and I have heard only one message." He meant it as a compliment, for he knew as I did that there is only one Christian message.
The Message is About God
The message is, first of all, a message about God. God created
us in His image. He created us and loves us so that
we may live in harmony and fellowship with Him. We are not here by chance.
God put us here for a purpose, and our lives are never fulfilled and complete
until His purpose becomes the foundation and center of our lives.
The Message is About Us
The message is also about the human race, and about each one
of us. The Bible says that we have been separated and alienated from God
because we have willfully turned our backs on Him and are determined to
run our lives without Him.
This is what the Bible means by sin – choosing our way instead of God's
way, and not giving Him His rightful place in our lives. The evidence of
this is all around us, in the moral chaos and heartache of our world. The
headlines scream every day that we live in a broken, sin-ravaged world.
A Message About God's Love
But in addition, the message declares that God still loves us. He yearns to forgive us and bring us back to Himself. He wants to fill our lives with meaning and purpose right now. Then He wants us to spend all eternity with Him in heaven, free forever from the pain and sorrow.
A Message About Jesus' Death for Us
Moreover, God has done everything possible to reconcile us to Himself. He did this in a way that staggers our imagination. In God's plan, by His death on the Cross, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, taking the judgment of God that we deserve upon Himself when He died on the Cross.
Now, by His resurrection from the dead, Christ has broken the bonds of death and opened the way to eternal life for us.
The resurrection also confirms for all time that Jesus was in fact who He said He was; the unique Son of God, sent from heaven to save us from our sins. Now God freely offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
Our Response
Finally, this message is about our response. Like any other gift, God's gift of salvation does not become ours until we accept it and make it our own. God has done everything possible to provide salvation. But we must reach out in faith and accept it.
How Do We Do This?
First, by confessing to God that we are sinners and in need of His forgiveness; then by repenting of our sins and, with God's help, turning from them.
Second, by committing our lives to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The best-known verse in the New Testament states the Gospel concisely:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16-17
Will You Open Your Heart to Jesus?
God in His grace invites us to receive His Son into our lives today.
If you have never done so, I invite you to bow your head
right now and by a simple prayer of faith open your heart to Jesus
Christ. God receives us just as we are.
No matter who we are or what we have done, we are saved only because
of what Christ has done for us.
I will not go to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds. I will
go to Heaven for one reason: Jesus Christ died for me, and I am trusting
Him alone for my salvation. Christ died for you also, and he freely offers
you the gift of eternal life as you commit your life to Him.
When you do, you become a child of God, adopted into His family forever.
He also comes to live within you and will begin to change you from within.
No one who truly gives his or her life to Christ will ever be the same,
for the promise of His Word is true:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from
God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ..." 2 Corinthians
5:17-18
We have seen this happen countless times all over the world,
and it can happen in your life as well. Open your life to Christ today.
with permission
excerpted from Just As I Am
1997 Harper/Collins
