How to be a Christian

1. BORN AGAIN: Being born again means to be reborn in a spiritual sense. Just as there is an invisible quantum world that runs the physical universe, that we cannot effectively measure, there is an invisible spiritual world that we can operate our lives from. A christian transitions into the spiritual realm where they can begin to operate their life, rather than operating in the much more limited physical world. It's like transitioning from hunter-gatherers into a more civilized, industrial life. We now become infinte beings, stepping into an eternal life and operating with much more refined, super-natural talents, abilities, and infinite power enabled by the Holy Spirit. The human body and our physical minds and natural instincts, reactions to others and to circumstances, and discouragements are now simply things to be controlled through the Spirit of God rather than controlling us. It's an unimaginable new freedom because of Christ! Any suffering we experience in this life right now is nothing but a blip, or actually NOTHING at all, in all of eternity! We are now above and not beneath. Nothing can ever take away our joy or peace or love. Our pride is no longer in who we are or who we were, but in Christ. Weakness in our fleshly nature is actually now our strength and trials and difficulty are now our food or our fuel because now we can overcome anything in Christ! Everything now works for our best. Any pride in ourselves will bring us away from this new freedom and bring us right back to the "jail cell" of our old, foolish, limited, physical, dead life. All of our efforts are now laser-focused on spiritual transformation and throwing off any discouragement, distractions from our old life or our caveman-like fleshly lusts, reactions to others and to circumstances, and addictions by the power of the Holy Spirit.


2. THE GOLDEN RULE: Once a person has decided to turn away from their way of life and has accepted Jesus into their lives as their Lord and savior, they need to begin to follow Him. Christianity enlightens you and challenges your intelect compared with your old life. Jesus said that all biblical principles "hang on" the golden rule. Therefore, every action, every word, and every thought of any Christian can be tested according to just one rule... the golden rule. One can always evaluate themselves and others very easily. This simple evaluation process should be a continual focal point and priority for every Christian. One way to do this is to imagine yourself in the other person's "shoes" and imagine how you would like to be treated. True Christians are continually applying their minds to this kind of rational thought process that will bring about practical ingenuity and success in every area of life.


3. PRAYER: The golden rule can be applied to God also. Let's test it. We were made in the image of God so the parent-child relationship can be used as an analogy to our relationship with God. If you were a parent, would you like your child to love and communicate with you? Would it not also be healthy for the child to likewise love and connect with the parent? This is how you can use the golden rule to evaluate christian behavior. Prayer is the primary way we love and connect with God. Worship music can be a vehicle to make it easier to connect with God. Prayer is mainly a time to love and adore and thank God for his goodness and his creation. intercession for others and supplication for one's self are secondary priorities. Working towards an hour a day in concentrated worship and love of God alone and with others is a great goal. Spending every available moment from waking to falling asleep with thoughts and words of thanks and adoration to God is another effort to continually work towards. God operates on the golden rule. Therefore, the more you worship, pray, and love of God the more he will pour into you and your life rivers of living water of love and blessings.


4. BIBLE STUDY: Christianity is for rational people. It causes you to think and to hunger and thirst for truth and righteousness. Mankind operates largely on caveman-like natural instincts and biases/preconceived notions: I am hungry, so I eat. I lust, so I fulfil my lusts. I am angry, so I retaliate. I am afraid, so I think fearful thoughts. Life is painful, so I need a "crutch" like alcohol, drugs, and sex. Being a Christian raises you above caveman instincts into true intelectual and spiritual enlightenment. Even though the whole Bible is based on one rule, the golden rule, we need to read and follow the Bible because we cannot always see past our biases and natural instincts to properly apply the golden rule. The Bible can be easily read cover-to-cover once a year simply by reading a few chapters a day. The more you study the Bible the more your life will operate successfully. Although there will still be trials and hardship in order to further build you up.


5. RECIPROCITY: Every single success in life and every successful person uses the biblical principle of reciprocity(e.g. "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.", "Give and it shall be given unto you.") The entire earth operates on this principle, e.g. you plant seeds and reap a harvest. Again, this is nothing other than the golden rule! Everyone has time and talent/wisdom. Time and talent is like a seed. The more high quality talent and time you put into benefiting other people, the more harvest you will reap. Your job will pay you an immediate harvest because of the time and talent you sow into it. The more seeds you plant, the greater your harvest. The unsuccessful person does not use their time well nor do they sharpen their talents and develop their wisdom as well as the successful person does. Many times the unsuccessful person's life is full of pain and fear, etc., pain of failure, fear of failure, pain of early childhood lack of love, pain of hurt from friends and family, etc., so the added pain of sharpening their abilities and their knowledge or wisdom or getting up and spending time doing productive things feels like too much more pain to add onto their piles of pain and fear. Christianity gives you the best possible chance at overcoming any such problems and being successful, as we will see...


6. HUMILITY: A Christian is a disciple of Christ. A disciple is a learner or pupil. Jesus said that the greatest among you will be the least among you. A true priest/pastor/or minister should see themselves as "poor in spirit" and see you as their mentor. But, it is very very rare or impossible to find such a leader who acts like Jesus. And likewise, we should see our pastors and other believers as our mentors. Therefore, all of us should be expecting others to be our mentors and ourselves to be other's mentors. This should create an intense learning environment where everyone is strongly drawn to each other in unity like magnets to grow in Christ!

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