© 2025 by Charlie Cornford
[Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]
If you are reading this tract because you would like to become a Christian then you need to understand that you cannot make yourself a Christian. Only God can do that (John 3:1-8). That is not to say that you don't have to do anything to become a Christian; far be it! But if you did take the requisite steps it would be because God enabled you to take them in the first place; more than that, he drew you irresistibly to Jesus Christ – you could do no other (John 6:44). So what does it mean to become a Christian. Let's start with what it doesn't mean: 1. It is not a decision to adopt a certain lifestyle or philosophical stance. In other words, Christianity is not an ideology. It is essentially a matter of the heart and you cannot change your heart. 2. It is not a decision to win God's approval so as to benefit from his generosity. We can never "win" God's approval. The bible is clear on that. 3. It is not simply joining an organisation such as a church. The devil can do that! 4. It is not submitting to certain rituals such as baptism. The world is riddled with people who were baptised as infants and yet have never darkened a church door in their lives. 5. It is not donating large sums of money to a church or a worthy cause. God doesn't want your money, he has plenty of his own. 6. It is not saying prayers every day. Until we are Christians God doesn't even hear our prayers. 7. It is not accepting some verbal mantra such as "Jesus has died for your sins" or "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life", neither of which is true for most people. 8. It is not believing that God exists. The devil not only believes God exists but he actually KNOWS God exists, and that doesn't do him any good. The above list is not exhaustive but probably covers most of the misunderstandings that people have about what it means to be or become a Christian. So how do people become Christians? There are many things that can be said but I want to answer the question by defining what is the absolutely central and most important aspect of true conversion and that is: BECOMING A CHRISTIAN IS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD. Becoming a Christian is to address the most pressing and life shattering problem any man or woman can possibly have in this life. It is to address the problem of alienation between ourselves and God. This alienation is not just on our part but also on God's. Prior to conversion we want nothing to do with God. We might think we do but the bible is clear that we don't (Romans 1:18-32). If we think we love God then we don't know him; it's as simple as that. In fact we spend our lives suppressing the truth about God which is evident all around us. We invent stories to remove God from anything that might even remotely suggest his existence. The common one in the west is Darwinian Evolution. In the east it is animism, paganism and all the other isms that try to explain the universe in godless terms (This is not a DEI document). So how did we get to have this condition? Unfortunately we were born with it (John 3:1-8; Romans 5:12-21). We got it from our parents, who got it from their parents, and so on. It goes right back to the first couple from whom the entire human race is descended. The male of this couple did not merely act on his own behalf but on behalf of his entire progeny. Yes, power of attorney is as old as Adam. This couple, and more importantly the man, loused up catastrophically when they disobeyed God after being placed in a beautiful garden with everything they needed. And the guilt of their sin passed on to all of their descendants. And not only their guilt but also their sinful nature, ie., a nature that sins naturally with no premeditation required. Christianity addresses the problem of the inherited guilt and sinful nature of man. In so doing it reconciles us to God so that God changes from foe to friend. Although Christianity is essentially a matter of the heart there is an intellectual component, i.e., there are things we must believe in order to cross the threshold. This essay won't do you any good unless you believe it. And to believe it you must be born again, i.e., born of God. This is called regeneration. If you have not been regenerated it is unlikely that you would have read this far so be encouraged, you are heading in the right direction. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a sinner the sinner has no say in it. He/she is completely passive. The circumstances of regeneration are irrelevant to the process. You could be in the middle of robbing a bank or committing genocide but the change becomes evident when you are convicted of your wrong doing. But this conviction is not just the realisation that you have done the wrong thing but that you have sinned against God. This distinguishes the conviction of regeneration from every other type of conviction. It is the conviction that you are a rebel against God and you are decidedly uncomfortable about it. You might be thinking: but I'm not that bad, am I? Yes you are. What matters is not how you appear to yourself but how you appear to God for it is God who determines your ultimate destiny. So let's turn to some biblical passages to see just how God sees you right now. Romans 3:10-18 "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.' 'Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.' 'The venom of asps is under their lips.' 'Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.' 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.' 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'" So who is Paul talking about here? The expression "Jews and Greeks" means Jews and non-Jews, which is everybody. Many people don't agree with the judgements of our legal system but the legal system wins every time. It is the same with God except even more so. God's judgements are always correct and Romans 3:10-18 is about you. John 3:19-20 "And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed." Here, Jesus is the "light" and John 3:19-20 is a description of the response all unregenerate people make to the gospel. Ephesians 2:1-3 "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." In this passage the apostle Paul is describing the Ephesian church before they were converted. Were they a particularly wicked bunch? No, they were just ordinary unregenerate people getting on with their lives. So when it comes to God's view of the unbelieving world his descriptions are not about bolstering egos. But the pathway to conversion always includes a realisation on our part that his judgements are true. This is the effect of being born again of the Holy Spirit. The next thing we need to consider is what you can do about this condition of sin. I said at the beginning that you cannot make yourself a Christian but there are still things you have to do which the Holy Spirit enables you to do by changing your heart. Having considered the bad news we now take a look at the good news of the gospel which is summarised for us in John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 is about God's love, and in particular, how God loves the world. To see this love we have to look in the right place, and the place to look is the events of the gospel itself. So God loves the world in this way, that he has given his only begotten Son, who is Jesus Christ. And the purpose of this gift is that the world should not perish but have eternal life. Many doubt the love of God because they look in all the wrong places. We don't see God's love in our circumstances because our circumstances are a mixed bag. In that bag are the good and the bad. Sadness stains every part of life from infant mortality to war and genocide. We have good days and we have bad days. The best we get from all of this is ambiguity, certainly nothing clear about God's love. The giving of the Son amounts to a rescue mission; we are rescued from the end result of being at enmity with God: we perish. Don't confuse this with annihilation; it is closer to dying from a thousand cuts except that we never actually die. It is, in short, eternal hell. Jesus has more to say about hell than anyone else in the bible. The unregenerate end up there because there is no place for them in heaven. Heaven is a place where there is no sin or any of its consequences and the bible knows of no third alternative. Furthermore, hell is also a place of punishment for sin which never ends because its occupants never repent. In the gospel we see God entering into the suffering of man by his own death upon a cross; so God did not exempt himself from that suffering which was necessary in order to pay the penalty that was incurred by sinners. On the cross Jesus took their place and suffered on their behalf. When someone sacrifices his own life to save another we cannot doubt the motive for that sacrifice; indeed, Jesus tells us in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." We call this the supreme sacrifice. So while John 3:16 teaches us the how of God's love, John 15:13 teaches us the extent of that love. But now we must add an important qualification. It is not everybody who benefits from that love but only those who believe in him. In other words, the incomprehensible saving love of God is found only in the Son. To be beneficiaries of that love we need to be united to Jesus, a union that is acquired by faith. This faith is a wholehearted trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sin, thereby saving us from the judicial consequences of our sin and making us friends of God for ever. This is the reconciliation spoken of earlier in this tract and it is called "eternal life". It is life in all its intended fullness and it is eternal for it never ends, transcending physical death. Can we trust Jesus to take away our sin and give us eternal life? Approximately 2000 years ago Jesus was crucified by the Romans and died an agonising death. We know he died because he was embalmed and buried in a rich man's tomb. But on the third day after his death Jesus raised himself from the grave (Luke 24). So how does a dead man raise himself? Clearly, there had to be something more to Jesus than a human nature, i.e., another source of power. We know from the many miracles that Jesus performed throughout his earthly ministry that he had the supernatural power of God. He raised others from the dead, healed lepers, restored sight to the blind, made paralytics walk, controlled the weather, multiplied bread and fish, walked on water and turned water into wine. All of these miracles are recorded in the gospels of the New Testament. But the final and definitive miracle of all was to raise himself from the dead. This proved that he had two natures: a human nature and a divine nature. It was his divine nature that raised the human nature from the dead and it will be this same divine nature that will raise his people from the dead at his return. So you must ask yourself: just who is Jesus and can I trust him to take my sin away and give me eternal life? If your first answer is "the God-man" and your second is "Yes" then congratulations, you have been born again of the Holy Spirit. Now put your trust wholly in Jesus to remove your sin and submit to him as Lord and master and he will put his Holy Spirit inside you to comfort and strengthen you. Finally, it is important that you attach yourself to a Christ-centred church where the bible is preached faithfully and where the people have done what you have done - put their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christians for it is the means that God has appointed by which we are to grow spiritually. And may God go with you. Amen.