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Questions on Becoming a Christian 2

Dear Friend,

Your letter was very encouraging to me. I did not expect that my teaching and answering your problems would help.

Your not praying or reading the Gospels explains a lot. You have said several times that you want to be a Christian, but did not do two of the things that are causes of faith. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the preaching of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). Of course you have not had faith. You have not gone to the source.

Becoming a Christian is not an exercise of reason or intellectual answers. It is about a moral problem; it is a sin issue. You could have all of your questions answered to your satisfaction, and still you would not be a Christian.

Part of this belief, this trust in the completed work of Christ, is repentance from dead works to serve the living and true God. This turning from sin was the basic command in the prophets, of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-2), Jesus (Matthew 4:17), Peter (Acts 2:38), and Paul (Acts 26:20).

Here are a few paragraphs from the Bible to read with the intention that they will speak to your heart, not to your head: Isaiah 53, Luke 24:36-45, Revelation 20:11-22:21, Isaiah 55, 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, Romans 3, 4, and 5, Acts 9 and 17:30-31.

You are primarily an experiential person, not a rational one. You have been hiding behind these questions. They are not questions of intellect but questions of emotion. Look at your questions again. You are not questioning the validity of the acts or truth of the text, but you are questioning the validity of the motive of the acts. As long as these questions are not answered to your satisfaction, you can hang on to your sin a little longer. You have been pretending that they are intellectual questions. It would not make sense to say, “I know it is all, true but I will not receive Christ.” You know very well that it is all true.

Quit trying! Open yourself up to the love of God. He does all of the saving; you have no part in it except to be sick of sin.

In Christ,

Jim Wilson

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