The first step is to choose to make Jesus Christ as Savior an active participant in everything you do.

 

THE DECISION TO BE CHRISTIAN

The first step in living is to come to life. For human life this happens at birth; for divine life at Baptism. But for Baptism to bring us to life we have to believe. That is why Baptism is also called "the Sacrament of Faith."

What is the fundamental act of faith required for Baptism? John concludes his Gospel saying "these words are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name." The first step in coming to life is to believe in Jesus as the Savior sent from God.

To believe fully — and practically — in Jesus as Savior it is not enough just to make an act of faith in Jesus as the one who saved us by dying for our sins. Jesus is not just a lifeguard who pulls us to shore when we are drowning, to whom we will be eternally grateful, but whom we do not need anymore. To really believe in Jesus as Savior means to believe that we need him to save us from day to day, to save our lives here on this earth from veering off to destructiveness, distortion, mediocrity and meaninglessness. This requires constant, ongoing interaction with him.

Peter’s preaching about Jesus was, "There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved" (Acts 4:12). We understand this in a practical way when we pass through an act of "life-giving despair," realizing that nothing can save us from the destructive patterns of behavior programmed into us by our culture, from the distorted attitudes and values, the mixed-up priorities that we inherit as part of our "cultural conditioning" (and Original Sin) except knowing Jesus Christ, reflecting on his teachings, taking on his mind, converting to his values, patterning our lives on the example of his. This is what it means to accept Jesus as the Savior, and only Savior, of the world. This is what it means to accept him as our "personal Savior" — it means to let his Person be the one with whom we interact in the formation of our own persons, in the continuing, lifelong process of molding who we are.

God created us as "what" we are: as human beings, men and women. But by our free choices we create ourselves as "who" we are, as persons. Every free response to life determines the meaning our names will have for all eternity. To accept Jesus as Savior means that we decide to interact with him in everything we do: in the formation of our attitudes and values, in the selection of our goals and the means we will use to achieve them, in every free choice which shapes our souls. This is the choice to let his name be the name which determines the content and meaning of our own.

 

How do we do this? We do it by giving Jesus an active part in every area and activity of our lives. We let him live with us as Savior, work with us as Savior, relax with us as Savior. We give him an active role in what we do at home and on the job, in our social life, school life, professional activities. We ask his help before everything we do and while we are doing it; and we thank him when we are through. We keep ourselves aware of his presence when we are speaking, conscious of his reactions. We bounce all of our decisions off of him. At home we speak to him as a group and we let him lead us in discussions of his words, his example, the challenges of his life. We do the same in any group who are believers like ourselves. In any Christian gathering we explicitly include him. We don’t act as if we did not know him, as if he were not there. We make his invisible presence visible by the way it is reflected in our words and actions. We don’t join the silent conspiracy to ignore him.

 

QUESTIONS