Why Should I Become A Christian?

Why should you become a Christian? What’s the biblical reason everyone should?

Separated from God

Most people think they’re a good enough of a person to go to heaven but what does the Bible say about that? Paul writes, in quoting the Old Testament, “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10) where he quotes the psalmist in Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1 and even worse, “no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Rom 3:11) so the false idea that our works are good enough to be accepted by God is not biblical. God looks at the very best things that we can do and says they are no more than filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Every person ever born falls infinitely short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23) and all we have earned is the death penalty (Rom 6:23a) but God gives us the free gift of eternal life but it’s found only in Jesus Christ (Rom 6:23b). “God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God” (Psalm 53:2) so we have a problem…no works can do anything to save us (Eph 2:8-9) and our “iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Now, if anyone still thinks they’re a pretty good person, then they don’t know what the Bible says.

Reconciled back to God

Now that we’ve seen from Scripture that none of us can ever do enough good to save ourselves and that we are all cut off from a holy God by our sins, we know we have the need to be reconciled back to God, but how? We have already read that we can’t be reconciled back to God by what we do since we can’t do anything to save ourselves. Instead, it is God Who had to make the first move, whereby “God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2nd Cor 5:18) since at one time “we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10). God sent His Son “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6). This was accomplished through Jesus Christ Who “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25).

Who takes the Wrath?

Jesus told the self-righteous that “you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). Jesus had just told the crowd this after there was a tragedy when several people had died and others had been murdered. Jesus asked the crowd, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way” (Luke 13:2) “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem” (Luke 13:4)? The obvious answer to this rhetorical question is no. All too often we try to compare ourselves with others who we deem worse than we are but Paul wrote we dare not “classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding” (2nd Cor 10:12). Our standard of comparison is God and not humans. Now the question becomes; who takes the wrath of God? Will it be you or will it be Jesus Christ? Jesus gives everyone only one of two options; “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). That’s it! There are no other options available to us.

Died for your Life

If you have repented of your sins, and this means that you have turned away from and forsaken them; and then if you have trusted in Christ, then Jesus has taken the wrath of God you and deserved. If not, you have your own sins to bear and the wrath of God is still abiding on you right now and will forever more unless you repent (John 3:36b; Acts 16:30-31). Jesus said that unless a person is born again, they cannot only see the kingdom; they cannot enter it (John 3:3, 7). Here is how you can have the necessary righteousness to enter the kingdom. Paul writes that it was “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2nd Cor 5:21) so it must be Jesus’ righteousness imputed on our behalf because God will not accept our own righteousness (filthy rags that they are) but He will accept Jesus’ righteousness on our behalf. This was made possible only from the fact that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2nd Cor 5:19).

Conclusion

Why should you become a Christian? Why not? Remember that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8) and that is why you and I should be “ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2nd Cor 5:20). If you are not reconciled back to God, then Revelation 21:8 speaks about your eternity as the Apostle John writes that “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.