Diary of a New Christian!! (Part I: Too Hot For God?)

I wanted to start a three part series on being a new Christian and the feelings, events, and things I have witnessed over the last few months since being saved. Many Christians have been saved since they were very young or for many, many years! This is awesome...but just as we forget what it was like to be young at times...I think this might help both long time Christians and new Christians a like!

For the record, I have been saved since April 18, 2009. I was dragged to New Spring Church in Anderson, SC and heard Perry Noble speak about Christianity from the Bible like I had never heard before!! I was hooked!!

Like a lot of people, I had flirted with God a few times before. I would go to church...get filled with the spirit...and be hardcore for a few weeks or months and then it would die off or I would slip and stumble.

I would feel foolish! I would feel embarrassed! I would feel like a complete fake and then return into the safe embrace of the life of sin I had grown so accustomed to before.

I felt foolish because I had alienated all my "friends" and shouted the word of God from the rooftops...changed my music to Christian-Only...Stopped watching anything with "ungodly" material. In other words...I had completely CHANGED who I had spent years becoming!!

I felt embarrassed because I had professed my love to the Lord in front of everyone, but I had slipped and stumbled! I had let the Lord down and (sometimes more importantly to me) I had let down those around me! In other words...I had set an incredibly high standard of morality and expected perfection.

In every single case where I flirted with God, I had relied on SOMEONE ELSE to tell me how to be a Christian. I had relied on the church and tried to mimic their standards. I had relied on a public figure and tried to match their public moral fiber. I had perceived God as a being that demanded perfection and Christianity as a club that collected good deeds as their dues.

The supposed extremely high standards, self-induced guilt, and radical lifestyle change always proved to be too much and I would eventually break!

But here are the things I wish someone would have said to me:

1 - Read the BIBLE!!! Study the BIBLE!!! It is you New Employee Handbook!!! Do NOT allow anyone else to tell you what to do or how to act or what is and isn't "acceptable". ** I find this to be the MAIN REASON for my faith "sticking" this time! **

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. -2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 - Find a mentor...a trainer...and trust them. Don't follow them!! Allow them to guide you but not lead you!

Finally...

3 - RELAX! You are LOVED UNCONDITIONALLY and FORGIVEN for both past sins AND FUTURE!! Grow at your own rate! Strive for perfection...BUT...accept that we are ALL SINNERS...You...your old friends...your new friends...Even your pastor!! Love them all!!

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. -1 John 1:8-10


This is for the Experienced Christians:

So there I was...eating crow with my old "friends" and slowly slipping back into the worlds waiting and comforting arms. In most cases it caused me to denounce Christianity even more than before!!

You see...The ugly truth is that too many times we HAVE made the church a cold and rigid club to join in the beginning...Cold stares...tough questions...written letters...standing in front of a HUGE group of people and being VOTED ON!!

Do the bars, strip clubs, drug dealers, pimps, hookers, porn sites, or our old circle of friends stare at us...ask us a series of questions...require a written document...or vote on us???

No...hence one of the reasons it is SO easy for new Christians to turn around and head back into their old lifestyles!

It is our DUTY as Christians to usher in our new found brethren with complete love, understanding, AND forgiveness (past, present, and future!).

Thanks for reading! Part II (The Devils Due!) is coming soon...