What To Do If You're Not a Christian But You Want To Be One: Twenty Directions

Twenty Directions

Direction One

1. If you truly want to be saved and become a child of God, don't stay ignorant, but do your best to come into the light and understand God's Word in matters about salvation.

If knowledge is unnecessary, why do we have the ability to understand? And how different are we than an animal. If any knowledge at all is necessary, it would have to be the knowledge of the greatest and most necessary things in life. And what else is greater and more necessary than obeying your Maker, and saving your soul? You see, we value knowledge based on how useful it is to us. You already know how to take care of your earthly business, to buy and sell, to build worldly wealth, to understand the laws pertaining to business, and to maintain your reputation. But if these are as important to you as knowing how to be reconciled to God, to be forgiven and justified, to please your Creator, to prepare here and now in this life for death and judgment and an endless life, then you might has well let your business rule your life. But if your business and the rest of your earthly pursuits are only dreams and shadows, and if they are only as valued insofar as they serve you in getting to heaven, then wouldn't it make sense that heavenly wisdom is the best?

Oh my! How stupid is that man who is acquainted with all the details of the law, who has mastered many languages, who has degrees in science and in the arts, but doesn't even know how to live for God, how to kill his sinful desires, how to conquer his sin, how to deny himself, nor knows how he's going to answer for his earthly life on judgment day, nor how to escape hell! This kind of person is as far from real wisdom as he is from real happiness.

There are two sorts of people who quietly live among us in damning ignorance.

FIRST, there are huge numbers of poor people. These are folks who think they have to continue in poverty because they were born that way. They also think that just because they are not well-educated, if educated at all, that they don't need to learn how to be saved. Their argument is this: "my mom and dad didn't teach me when I was a kid, so I ain't gonna worry about it now." And so they never learn the very reason why they exist.

But think about it for a minute people! Why do you have your lives, and your time and your brains for in the first place? Do you think that it's only to know how to work and make a living? Or is it to prepare for a better world? It would actually be better for you if you didn't know how to eat, drink, talk, or dress yourself than to not know the will of God and the way to be saved. Here's what the Holy Spirit said in 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4:

"If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God."

Being in the dark is unsafe and full of fears. But being in the light brings safety and comfort. An ignorant person will hardly ever know where he's going, or whether he's coming or going, nor what kind of danger or enemy is close by. The devil is the prince of darkness, and his kingdom is a kingdom of darkness, and the things he does are works of darkness. (See Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 1:13; 1 John 2:11; Luke 11:34,35). Grace turns men from darkness to light (Acts 26:18), and causes them to throw off the works of darkness (Romans 13:12). We want to be people of the light and of the day, and not people of darkness or the night (1 Thessalonians 5:5). Those of us who were in darkness before are now in the light of the Lord when we were converted. This means, then, that we shoudl walk as people of the light (Ephesians 5:8).

In the dark, the devil and all kinds of wicked men may cheat you and do pretty much whatever they want with you. But when it comes to doing your shopping, you don't do that in the dark, and you don't travel in the dark, and you don't do your work in the dark. So why would you judge the state of your soul in the dark? Why would you think about the things of salvation in the dark. I'm telling you, the devil would never tempt so many souls to hell if he didn't first cut off the light, or blind them. Seriously! They would never follow him in crowds to eternal torments in broad daylight with eyes wide open. If people only understood well what they were doing when they sinn, they would stop immediately and go no further. All the demons in hell could never tempt so many people to go to hell if peoples' igorance didn't give him the upper hand in temptation.

A SECOND group of people among us who live in damning ignorance of the things of God are smart, scholarly, and worldly people who have enough good upbringing to understand the words I'm using, and can speak somewhat better than the average uncultured person. But despite this they don't know anything about the nature, truth, and goodness of the words themselves. Most of them are ignorant about the things of God and salvation, holiness, the person and work of the Holy Spirit in planting the image of God in the soul, about Christians' personal relationship with God, what a holy life looks like. they act like they've never heard about any of this (as if it didn't exist), much less believed in any of it.

Nicodemus is a great example here. He was a ruling teacher in Israel, called a Pharisee. Yet the man had no earthly idea how to be born again. It's the pride of these hoity-toity types that makes their ignorance harder to cure than that of other people. Their own pride hinders them from knowing and confessing their pride. And if anybody tried to convince them of it, they would say with resentment what the Pharisees said to Jesus in John 9:40: "Are you saying we're blind?" What's worse is that they are so quick to insult true Christians, who were wise enough to see salvation, just because we differ with them about their irresponsible and hypocritical opinions when it comes to matters of worshiping God.

Their religious authorities are about as competent to judge us as the Pharisees were the doctrine of Christ, or as Nicodemus was on the subject of regeneration, or as Simon the Magician or Julian or Porphyry were of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These miserable men (whom were recognized in their day as honorable), can't take a rebuttal or a contradiction to their way of thinking. Who in the world would dare be so rude, unsubmissive or arrogant as to tell them that they are not on the way to heaven, and that they are strangers to God (not to mention enemies)? Who dares presume to stop them on their way to hell, or hinder them from damning themselves and as many others as they possibly can? They think that all this talk about Jesus, grace, eternal life, and all this seriousness (when they seem all too serious about their own behavior, levity, and mocking) is only the wearying inconvenience and precision of hypocritical, childish, crazy people. They speak about godly persons like the Pharisees did in John 7:47-49. " 'Have you been led astray, too?' the Pharisees mocked. 'Is there a single one of us rulers or Pharisees who believes in him? This foolish crowd follows him, but they are ignorant of the law. God's curse is on them!' "

Well, regardless of whether you are the first or second type of person I just mentioned above, if you don't delight in the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5-7, 13), but continue to live in ignorance of the mysteries of salvation, you need to know that heavenly truth and holiness are works of light, and will never be revealed to you as long as you stay in the dark. I also want you to know that the very best of your thinking abilities should be used for God and your salvation, if you use them for anything at all. It is the devil and his demons who are scared of the light. Carefully think through what it is that you are actually doing, and then see if you can continue to be wicked. And if you choose to be wicked despite this fact, I dare you then to look at Christ and holiness and see what happens!

I'm begging you here to run out of the darkness and come into the light, and you will see something that will make you scared to death of living another day in ungodliness and without being converted. You will see that which brings on you the most sorrowful remorse you've ever experienced. And you'll cry that you've lived this long neglecting heaven, wondering how in the world you could go so far and live so long by your own smarts so as to be comfortable with choosing a course of emptiness and living much like an animal in the chains of Satan instead of the joyful liberty of the saints. We don't want to be the ones who said it, but you yourselves will end up calling yourselves, "incredibly crazy and stupid, disobedient, deceived, slaves to all kinds of lust and pleasures, just like another famous person did who thought he was as wise and good as many of you (Acts 26:11; Titus 3:3).

If you want to experience saving grace, then stop living in a sleepy state of ignorance.

What To Do If You're Not a Christian But You Want To Be One: First Things First

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16. I am also supposing that you are easily convinced that since human beings have the ability to reason and live for things that have eternal consequences, their thoughts about those kinds of things should be frequent and very serious. Their minds should be used about these very things in a rested and sober deliberation.

17. And I suppose further that you are a human being, and that based on this you are somewhat acquainted with yourself at least enough to know whether your heart and life measure up to what you believe. What is more, I figure you also know whether your heart and life are more focused on heaven or earth. This means then that you are capable of judging yourself in this situation.

Perhaps you might way that while I'm telling you to be holy, I am assuming first of all that you are in fact holy. For everything I'm saying seems to be bringing us far along in this direction. But I've got to tell you...I don't see anything in all these "supposings" I've made to you, but only what I also suppose to be a heathen! And I also think that all of this is supposing that you are thinking straight only on the matters we've been talking about here. So you've got permission to speak freely at this point. Is there any of these "supposings" I've presented to you here that you can or even dare to deny? I don't think so.

What all of this means is that if heathens and wicked men can deny what I've been saying here in the way they live, all this shows is that sin makes them act like animals. It makes them act like they are asleep, or lost in a crowd of people, and they don't even understand how stupid they are in turning their minds away from these things.

18. Yes, if you'll allow me, there's one more thing I think I'd like to put to those who will read this book. I also want you to take on yourself the responsibility to believe three things: in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier, and that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God. and if in fact you do this, then I may hope that my book is finished before I write any further. However, you've got to know that if you believe these things only as if they were an opinion or without a desire for them to have any real effect in your life, God and all mankind will beg you to truly believe the truths which you say you believe.

Now, having told you what I suppose to be a part of your thinking process, I want to go on now to the directions for you. But I again beg you and even obligate you as the reader, that if you love your own life and don't want to be condemned for hypocrisy and laziness, that you do not refuse to put into practice what I have already taught you and will teach you. If you do, you'll only be showing that you are a pretender, a fake, and that you aren't willing to do your part for your own salvation....not even in the things that would seem necessary and make the most sense.

What To Do If You're Not a Christian But You Want To Be One: First Things First

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11. I suppose or expect that you have enough sense or reason about you to know how short and empty the pleasures of your body really are. Look how fast they go away. And even if they were bigger than they are right now, they would still be of hardly any value. I mean, think about it for a minute. What is time! Look how quick it comes and goes and then you don't have anymore of it! And everything you enjoyed when you had time goes away with it! What this means is that the joys and sorrows of such a short life are no big deal when it comes to gaining and losing.

My point here is this. I know that in light of how brief and empty our time and our lives are, it makes the most sense that you would make absolutely certain to give your closest attention and diligence to the probability or possibility of whether you will have endless joy or endless misery. These are the kinds of things that should command all the attention of a rational person, against everything else in life that can be set against it.

I might suppose, therefore, that you can easily conclude from this that the bare probability or possibility of this endless happiness should be infinitely preferred before such this fickle emptiness. Conversely, the probability or possibility of endless misery in hell should cause you to be as careful and diligent as you can possibly be in order to avoid it, rather than just worrying about what ever it is you hope to escape (like some sort of suffering you are going through) in this life by sinning. If you can't even see this, then you've lost your mind.

12. Well then, now that we've gotten this far with clarity, I want you to understand next that a religious, holy life is every human being's duty for two reasons. First, it is your duty because you owe it to God as your Creator, Owner, Governor, and Benefactor. Second, it is your duty because you love yourself, and your reason commands you to have ten thousand times more regard for a probable or possible endless joy and torment than for anything else which is far less significant.

And if this is true, that a holy life is every human being's responsibility, when it comes to the after life it should be clear that there is in fact such a thing. This turns probability and possiblity into certainty. If it is your duty to manage the life you have now on this earth by the hopes and fears of what happens in the next life, then it follows that either there is an after life or else God has made it our responsibility to hope, fear, care and labor for nothing. This in turn would mean that God tantalizes and cheats us all, that He rules the world with underhanded motives, and that he makes religion and obedience to our Maker to be nothing but a life of stupidity, delusion, and our total loss. Whoever believes this about God, though, can hardly believe God to be God. (And even though I mentioned this in another book I wrote, I thought my point here warranted repeating it again.)

13. Moving along further in my argument, if I suppose that you convinced of the life to come, and that your happiness and misery is there, then this must mean that you will want to use everything you possibly can about your life here and now with reference to the life to come. This means that you would use your propserity, your troubles, your honor and dishonor...everything. For nothing should be more obvious than that you would use everything you can for what comes next. What this means is that the only good that is in the life is that which will help you be happy in the next life in heaven. Conversely, the only thing that is evil in this life is that which ultimately hurts us and deprives us of anything good in the next life. In the end, there should be nothing at all which motivates us to sin against God, because that would just make us forfeit or hinder our eternal happiness.

14. I might suppose next that you'd argue that God can't be loved too much or obeyed too exactly or served too diligently. How much more true is this in light of the fact that we are all backward sinners who hardly have any real heart at all to love and worship Him. Nobody can ever be too sure that they are heading for heaven. No person can pay too great a price to go there. And no one can do too much to make sure he is saved. And this is just what God has given us the responsibility to do. What else do you possibly have that is worth more to spend your time doing, your heart loving and caring, and your body working? It is actually good for you to be stopped in your loving and caring and working for this world, because you easily pay far too much for it, and you do too much. But it doesn't make any sense to stop someone who is spending their love, care, and strength for God and their own salvation. This is worth far more than anything we can ever do. Yet this is also the place where the best seem apt to do so little for it and about it.

15. I'm also supposing that you're smart enough to know that the present life we all have is actually given to us as a testing ground to prepare us for the next life. The way you live your life here will speed you to the life you will live next. You can't get your time back after you've already spent it. It make the most sense then to make the best of this life now while you've still got it.

Adapted from A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter, reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1990, p. 10-11.

What To Do If You're Not a Christian But You Want To Be One: First Things First

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6. Based on what I've said before, I am supposing next that you are convinced that God must be absolutely submitted to and obeyed before anything and anyone else in the world, and also loved more than all friends, pleasures, or any other part of creation. Once you acknowledge, "God is the One who Owns me,", you must also say, "I will give myself to Him as His own." If you say, "I take God for my supreme Governor," you are also essentially saying, "I want to be absolutely ruled by Him." When you say, "God is the dearest Father ever," or "God is the best thing that has ever happend to me!", you are obligated to give Him your love and and show Him your deepest gratitude and thanks. Otherwise, if you are saying these things but not agreeing to what those things actually mean, your just playing around and contradicting yourself, all the while saying He is your God.

7. I suppose that you can be easily convinced that throughout the entire world there is really no human being or creature that can prove ownership of you like God can. You should also be easily convinced that on this planet there is not a single person who has the full rights to tell you what to do. There's also no one around who can be so good to you, or do so much for you, if you do your part. Therefore, there ought to be nothing that you prefer instead of Him, nor should be anything else that you obey or love instead of God. Even more importantly, there is no one or no thing on this earth that can save you from His justice, if you decide to stand against Him.

8. Do you believe that God is just in all His laws and judgments? Well, then you should also believe that He is faithful, which means that He cannot and will not deceive anyone or ;lie to anyone about what He wants them to do, because He doesn't need to. This kind of thing is more what the Devil would do than God. What this means is that while God is telling you what to do on this earth, and pointing your attention to His promises and threats after your death, He is not tricking you to believe in His promises and threats. God doesn't try to buy your obedience to Him with promises and threats in this lifetime (that's why you see wicked people prosper, and also why you see godly people suffer and be persecuted). No, God's rewards and punishments must primarily come in the next life, after you die. I mean think about it for a minute. If God had no rewards or punishments, then He would never judge anyone, and there would be no laws (and no justice). If that were true, then He would not be a ruler over human beings (much less a righteous one), and in the end He would not be our God. Logically, this would mean then that if He were not our God, then we would never have been created by Him, which means there would be no human beings at all.

9. Let's suppose for a moment that God didn't have a plan for us in the next life, after we died. Even something like that could never preclude the fact that we are obligated above everything else to obey and love Him. Why? For no other reason than that He is our absolute Lord, and our highest King, and our greatest Good. Everything we have or will have is from Him. What this means is that even human beings are obligated to spend their lives in the service of our God, we can never be a loser. Not even by an act of obedience that costs us everything we have. You see, God cannot send us to do anything that is worthless or useless. He is the most honest person in the world and will make sure that we do not lose out by serving Him. It seems then that this God for whom we should spend and forsake our lives and every other sinful pleasure which most other people enjoy, most certainly has some greater thing to give us in another life.

10. Now, in my arguments to you, I'm taking one thing for granted: that there is nobody out there so dumb enough to actually believe with the greatest certainty, "there's no such thing as an after life, and there is no life after death for human beings." Surely there's no one foolish enough to believe that there is no next life where our obedience will be rewarded, or our disobedience punished. The most such a dummy could even say is that he only thinks there is no after life. Nobody would dare look so foolish as to deny even the probability, if not possibility of it. Unless there's anyone who wants to speak up on this point, keep this in mind as I continue a little further.

Adapted from A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter, reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1990, p. 10.

What To Do If You're Not a Christian But You Want To Be One: First Things First

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1. I am starting with the assumption that you are a human being. This means that you have the ability to reason and make free choices (which is simply the ability to choose and refuse). This in turn means that you can do something as simple as keeping your bodily appetites and functions in check. And it also means you are capable of loving and serving the One who created you, and that you are capable of enjoying Him forever.

2. I'm also supposing, for starters, that you yourself know that you are a human being. This would mean that you would no more let your bodily appetites and functions rule your life than a car rules its driver, or refuse to be driven by him. I'm also supposing that you understand that you've been made on purpose to love and serve your Creator, and to be happy in His love for you and in His glory forever. If you don't even know this much, you probably don't even know that you're a human being. Or else you don't even know what a human being is!

3. I'm also going to suppose that you have a natural love for yourself, and that you probably desire your own self-preservation and happiness. Figuring this to be true, I'm also supposing that you don't have any desire to be miserable...or to be hated by God...or to be thrown outside the circle of His favor and presence into hell (where you'd end up being tortured forever along with the devil and all his demons!). What this supposes, in turn, is that you are not indifferent or apathetic to whether you will spend eternity in heaven or hell, in joy or torment. I trust I'm not offending you here, but I'm taking it for granted that you probably don't want to be careless about whether or not you are saved and happy, whether you are a godly or ungodly person, whether you are wise or stupid

4. Moving along, I am going to suppose next you understand that you didn't have anything to do with making or creating yourself. You also had nothing to do with the strength or smarts you were born with. However, God who made you and everything in the world must have existed before you and the world. This would make Him eternal, with no beginning (because if there ever had been a time when there was nothing at all, there never would have been anything at all, because nothingness can only make nothing!). Consequently, this means that you probably understand then, that all the power, knowledge, and goodness of everything in the world combined is far less than the power, knowledge, and goodness of the Creator, for no other reason than that nothingness can't give more than it has to give! What I'm ultimately supposing here is that you do acknowledge there is a God. Because in order to be the eternal, infinite Being, as well as the One who is the most powerful, knowledgeable, and good, and the first cause of every other created thing, being like this is to be God. So if you deny that there is a God, you must also deny that you are a human being, which is also to deny that there is such a thing as a human being, or any being at all for that matter.

5. As I continue my line of thought, I'm also supposing that you know that this God, who created all things, is by this title the absolute Owner, Lord, or King of everything. In addition, the God who made human beings with reason as well as with bodily appetites and functions which have to be governed, also has the title of Supreme Governor. What this means, in turn, is that His laws command our attention and obedience. These laws promise reward to us, while at the same time threatening judgment. God is going to judge human beings one day according to these laws, and He is going to be completely just in that judgment, as well as in His rewards and punishments. You see, the One who freely gave every living thing its very life, as well as all the good and beauty it has, must also continue to freely give each living thing everything it needs to keep on living. This makes Him the heavenly Father, and the most bountiful Benefactor to everything He created. Surely I'm not speaking over your head here in assuming that you know all this already, for all I'm basically saying here is that there is a God. I mean, let's face it. He can't be God if He is not the Creator, and therefore our Owner, and therefore our Ruler, but also our Benefactor, as well as our absolute Lord and King, our most righteous and perfect Governor, and most of all our loving heavenly Father.

Adapted from A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter, reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1990, p. 8-10.