Now that you have Believed

By David Cox
V2 ©2006 www.davidcox.com.mx/tracts
This tract may be freely photocopied.

A brief intro­duc­tion to the Chris­t­ian life for new believers.

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First Steps for New Believers

(1) You should read and study the Bible daily.
(2) You should pray to God daily.
(3) You should be bap­tized in a good church.
(4) You should assem­ble in a good church.
(5) You should par­tic­i­pate in the work of God.
(6) You should shun sin­ful habits.
(7) You should seek to serve God.
(8) You should honor God with your money by tithing.

Many new Chris­tians begin to faint in the first steps of their Chris­t­ian life. There are always hard times, but you should not give up. The ded­i­ca­tion in your soul should be set to go ahead with God and with the things of God, and this is more impor­tant than any­thing else in your life. Put the pri­or­ity of your life in God and the church. At times some peo­ple can hurt you very much, and at times it may even be a Chris­t­ian brother or your own church. But you need to keep your vision set on Christ, not on men. Fol­low Christ no mat­ter what the rest does.

Per­spec­tive: You are for God

We begin by putting a per­spec­tive over the Chris­t­ian life. Many think that their sal­va­tion is like a fire escape, you never use it or think about it until there is an emer­gency, but it is always there. Sal­va­tion is some­thing that touches our daily lives, and we can never for­get about it and put it in a cor­ner. Our rela­tion­ship with God has to be some­thing that is dynamic and alive. We are saved because we have this inti­mate rela­tion­ship with God and because of that, those who do not want that prob­a­bly are not saved.

1 Corinthi­ans 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: there­fore glo­rify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 7:23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the ser­vants of men.

1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a cho­sen gen­er­a­tion, a royal priest­hood, an holy nation, a pecu­liar peo­ple; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of dark­ness into his mar­vel­lous light:

After all, God saved you, and now you are the pos­ses­sion of God. You do not belong to your­self, now you have oblig­a­tions with your Sav­ior and a rela­tion­ship with Him. God saved you for so that you can glo­rify God, and announce his praises.

You are in the fam­ily of God

You are not saved because you stopped sin­ning or because of some­thing you have done. You are saved because you accepted the solu­tion or rem­edy that God has given for you sins, which is Jesus Christ who died in your place and suf­fered your pun­ish­ment. You sal­va­tion does not depend on what you have done, but depends on what Jesus Christ has done for you.  If you believe this, you will receive Jesus (John 1:12) and you have accepted the work of Jesus, with­out try­ing to insert some kind of work you have done to “buy” your salvation.

Now, God says that you are born again (John 3:3–6). In this spir­i­tual birth God has adopted you to be part of the his fam­ily, so that you can become a son of God (“son” means that you are in the fam­ily, that you are like the father, in other words, that you now take the char­ac­ter of the fam­ily and that you iden­tify with the fam­ily join­ing them in reunion.)

Once you are adopted into the fam­ily of God, you will always be part of it. God will not throw you out for any rea­son. You may do some­thing that embar­rasses the fam­ily, but that does not means that God will throw you out, but rather that God will cor­rect and dis­ci­pline you when you do some­thing wrong. You have a rela­tion­ship with God, and He will pun­ish you as a beloved son (Proverbs 13:24; Hebrews 12:6–13).

The Spirit and Sin

Cer­tainly as a new mem­ber of the fam­ily you under­stand that you have instant respon­si­bil­i­ties; and this is some­thing that takes time. When one is saved, he also does not under­stand the entire Bible. But God does a work. In this moment of sal­va­tion, God gives you a deposit or guar­an­tee of this promise of God that He will save you in the final Day of Judg­ment. This is a guar­an­tee for all eter­nity, and is really the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within your phys­i­cal body. You received the Spirit of God in the moment you accepted Jesus Christ (Gala­tians 3:2–3, 14; 4:6; John 7:38).

Eph­esians 1:13–14 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your sal­va­tion: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inher­i­tance until the redemp­tion of the pur­chased pos­ses­sion que es las arras de nues­tra heren­cia hasta la reden­ción de la pos­esión adquirida

If you do not have the Holy Spirit, it is because you are not part of God’s fam­ily, and that is to say, you are not yet saved! The Spirit works in your con­science show­ing you what is wrong. He does this work by using the work of God that you have heard or read, so as to instruct and cor­rect you in your road (2 Tim­o­thy 3:16–17). Because of this it is very impor­tant that you find a Bible and read it, study it, and med­i­tates over it every day, and that you mem­o­rize it reg­u­larly. (We rec­om­mend a King James Bible and that you start in 1 John, then the Gospel of John, and then the book of Romans.) By the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will cleanse use daily of our sins (if we use it). We should pray daily to God. Make a prayer list. Accord­ing to James 4:2 if we do not have what we want, it is because we do not ask God. By prayer, God can give us a vic­to­ri­ous life, and we thank God for what He has done for us (this per­mits God to do more), and we wor­ship our God.

But even doing this, you will sin. God already knows that you are going to fail and sin again on occa­sion. What should you do then? We should respond to the work of God in us. God says that when we sin, we should imme­di­ately con­fess this sin to God (1 John 1:8–10), ask for­give­ness, and aban­don it. God is faith­ful in for­giv­ing us, but our atti­tude should always be that of seek­ing His par­don for our sins and to repent of them (leav­ing them off). If we do not do this, then because we are part of God’s fam­ily, God will chas­tise us as sons of God and because of God’s love.

God com­pares the per­son who pro­fesses to be saved and returns to sin as a dog that returns to his vomit, or a pit that returns to wal­low in his own mire, or in his excre­ment (2 Peter 2:22). Once saved all should begin to be new, a new life, because you are a new crea­ture in Christ (2 Corinthi­ans 5:17). If not, per­haps you were not sin­cere when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior.

You need to be baptized.

This does not save you, but is a tes­ti­mony that you have already been saved by God. To be sub­merged in water means that you have died to your sins (which is that its influ­ence does not dom­i­nate you), and to be raised up out of the water means that you have been born anew in Jesus Christ. Matthew 10:32–33 explains that the per­son who has fear of con­fess­ing Christ pub­licly is not saved. You must absolutely con­fess Christ pub­licly as your sav­ior. Your faith can never be hid­den and be real.

You need to join a good church

Decide to be a good Chris­t­ian from the begin­ning and avoid grave prob­lems because you halfway do things. In Hebrews 10:25 the Bible com­mands us that we ought to have the reg­u­lar cus­tom of con­gre­gat­ing in a good church. You should con­gre­gate in that church Sun­day morn­ing and evening, and in their mid-week prayer ser­vice. Pre­pare your­self spir­i­tu­ally by arriv­ing on time, with­out being sleeps, and pray and calm your spirit before the ser­vice. Carry a note­book and pen, and take notes of the ser­mons. Appre­ci­ate your church and your pas­tor 1 Corinthi­ans 16:15.

There are two impor­tant con­cepts in eval­u­at­ing a church: their actual con­duct and their doc­trine. Find a good church that preaches and teaches the gospel and puts a lot of atten­tion and energy into evan­ge­liz­ing the unsaved, which has good sound doc­trine, includ­ing dis­ci­pline and sep­a­ra­tion from peo­ple and groups that are not of sound doc­trine and con­duct, and that their mem­bers have a good tes­ti­mony, espe­cially their lead­ers, preach­ers, and teach­ers. You should imi­tate the con­duct and faith of that pas­tor (Hebrews 13:7) and if you can­not in good con­science do so, look for another church.

In Matthew 25:31–46, Jesus explained to us that our sal­va­tion is real­ized by God in a com­mu­nity which is the church. We believe and show the evi­dences of our sal­va­tion by means of our love for our Chris­t­ian brethren in our local church.  1 John 3:14 says We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that does loveth not his brother abideth in dead.

Your Friends and Companions

Once you are saved, you need to live a new life, and aban­don the love of the things of the world (1 John 2:15). You should sep­a­rate your­self from sin and this includes bad influ­ences in your for­mer life. You should decide to not fre­quent the places of sin, espe­cially where you have gone to fall into sin before, such as bars. You should leave off bad habits such as drink­ing, smok­ing and danc­ing. The Bible tells us that a Chris­t­ian should sep­a­rate him­self from these things of the world (2 Corinthi­ans 6:14–18). You should pray for the sal­va­tion of your old friends but you should not “hang out” with these old friends that cause you to sin anew (such as old friends that invite you or tempt you to drink or take drugs). Seek out new friends that are good Chris­tians, which can help you in your spir­i­tual life.

Your ser­vice for God

God says that we are all priests in the New Tes­ta­ment so that we can do the work of God. God has dif­fer­ent gifts that help the Chris­t­ian min­is­ter before God (Eph­esians 4:7). In Matthew 25:14–30 God iden­ti­fies the unsaved per­son as that per­son who does noth­ing to serve God. It is very impor­tant that you seek and offer your ser­vices to God. God only uses clean ves­sels, so you should seek to live a clean (holy) life, and growth in your spir­i­tual life so that God can use you.

Tithes and Offerings

Proverbs 3.9–10 Hon­our the Lord with thy sub­stance, and with the first­fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. (Luke 6:38) This promise of God is where many trip up in their Chris­t­ian life. We should give a part of our income each week to the work of God. More­over we should give love offer­ings besides that when God touches our hearts about something.