Here’s how you didn’t become a Christian

Let me tell you how I didn’t become a Christian.

I never remember a time in my life when I wasn’t in church. Although my dad wasn’t a believer, my mother was, and she had me in Sunday school and church before I could walk.

Youth groups, camps, and consistent church attendance were the norm for me. If you had challenged me on whether I was actually a child of God in my teen years, I would have thought you were crazy — didn’t I go down front and get baptized at age 12 like the Bible said you were supposed to do?

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As many atheists and skeptics rightly point out, so many people say they are Christians because of their culture/family swim lane. And I was swimming right along, content that I was a true, blue believer.

But I wasn’t.

All that changed when I turned 19. For no earthly reason I can give you, out of the blue, I became mesmerized by a book I read on Bible prophecy. I wasn’t on fire for God (quite the opposite), had no previous interest in the subject of prophecy, and didn’t understand Scripture at all, even though I’d listened to it my whole life. 

At the end of the book, there was a chapter on understanding the Gospel, something I’m sure I’d heard 1,000 times before. The author was clear that Jesus’s return wasn’t good news for people who had never entered into a saving relationship with Him.

And for the first time, it dawned on me that I was just such a person.

What followed in the book was a short explanation of how to get right with God, which came over me like a warm arm around the shoulder that I’d never had. So, I crossed my legs on the couch, followed the author’s direction, and cried out to God for salvation.

After that, nothing external to me changed. I had the same job, went to the same school, had the same family, same friends, same church, same everything. But inside, I changed.

I didn’t become a Christian because my mother was a believer, nor because of the things I’d done, or even because I wanted to since, at the time, I was pretty indifferent to God. I was brought into God’s family back then, and am still today, because God had mercy and saved me Himself.    

In John’s Gospel, he first tells us by what means salvation comes about and then ends with how we aren’t saved when he writes: “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

Did I make the decision to receive Christ and be born again? Yep, I sure did. But it was not something I inherited, worked for, or even desired on my own. Let’s take a closer look at what John says, and I’ll show you what I mean.

Three strikes and you’re out

John first says we don’t become Christians because of our family (lit. in the Greek, “of bloods”) who may have been believers. This was the error of the Jews back in Christ’s day who thought they were “safe” because of their family/racial line.

“We are Abraham’s descendants” (John 8:33) the Jews boasted to Jesus, forgetting that John the Baptist had previously told them: “Do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9). Peter tells us our family genes don’t save us when he says: “You have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23).

We also don’t become Christians because of the things we do, like baptism or other works. This was also a mistake of the Jews back in Jesus’ day who believed God would accept them because of their traditions and meticulous external attention to the Law.  

Paul reminds us of this point when he writes, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5–7).

Notice that Paul says we are “heirs,” indicating we received something we didn’t earn ourselves.

Lastly, you and I don’t become Christians because we initially wanted to. This one makes the least sense to a lot of people, but it is biblical to the bone.

Scripture says, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). This is why James tells us God does the work of salvation in us: “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth” (James 1:18).

Peter says the same thing when he writes: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:3–5). Paul echoes something similar when he tells us, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom. 9:15–16).

In the end, Calvin sums up for us pretty well how we become Christians: “Hence it follows, first, that faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration; for the Evangelist affirms that no man can believe, unless he be begotten of God; and therefore faith is a heavenly gift. It follows, secondly, that faith is not bare or cold knowledge, since no man can believe who has not been renewed by the Spirit of God.”

Agreed.

So, if you’re a Christ follower today, you’re not in the family of God because of your parents, works, or even your fallen decision-making abilities. God gets the credit “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:29).