Once there was a patient king who ruled over a rebellious kingdom. The king loaned to each citizen gold coins from
the royal treasury. The citizens were supposed to invest the king's coins, and eventually pay them back. Some
citizens took out loans of thousands of gold coins. Others only borrowed a few hundred gold coins. But no citizen
ever paid back the full amount given to him.

The king saw that the citizens were taking advantage of His kindness. So he made a royal proclamation: "I am just
as interested in keeping a balanced bank-book as I am in being kind to my citizens. Soon, I will banish forever
everyone who remains in debt!"

None of the people had any way to pay their debts. And the king knew this. So he minted a new coin - one coin like
no other. His other coins had his name on them, or pictures of things he had made. But this one flawless coin had
his own portrait on it.

"This is the Forgiveness Coin," he said. "I take it from my own pocket and I make a new bank-account with it. Put
your debt on my account, and all your debt will be forgiven." Most of the citizens did nothing. Some of them refused
to believe that the king cared about their debts. Some of them hoped that if they ignored the king, he would go
away. Some of them had declared themselves to be their own king, and they refused to acknowledge that the true
king could tell them to do anything. And some of them thought that the king was too nice to banish anyone.

But some citizens believed the king. They wanted to know how they could put their debts on the king's account, and
receive the king's promise that all their debts were paid by the king's flawless coin.

We are in the same situation. God gave us the ability and the opportunity to do good in our

lifetimes. But none of us can give back to Him a life filled with nothing but goodness. We

have all fallen into debt with God.

God has declared that He will not treat good and evil the same way. He is a God of justice.

To maintain His justice, He has promised that a day is coming when He will demand payment for every sin. And the
payment for sin is death. But He is also a God of love. To maintain His love, God provided Jesus Christ, the only-
begotten Son of God. God declared that the death of Jesus is the complete payment for sins. And God promised
that everyone who transfers their debts to God's account, relying on Jesus' blood to cover their sins, will be forgiven.

How can you have God's promise that He has forgiven your sins? You don't have to guess. God has given His
promise in writing, in the New Testament. Here is what the New Testament says we should do if we desire to be
reconciled with God and join His kingdom as forgiven people.

Jesus tells us to put our trust in Him.

Faith is more than just believing in God. Faith is more than just believing that Jesus

Christ was a good man who taught good lessons and died on a cross. Faith is not

just a belief that Jesus died for your sins. It is also a conviction that God has the

right, as ruler of the universe, to be the king of your entire life, and it is a commitment

to submit to His authority.

Jesus tells us to consider what we are doing.

A good judge will not sentence a crying baby to prison for disturbing the peace.

The baby might be technically guilty of disturbing the peace, but the baby's loud

cries do not display disrespect for the law. The baby is not even aware of the law.

Reasonable judges take that into consideration. So does God. He will hold us

accountable for decisions that we make when we know what we are doing.

If you want to act in a meaningful way, you need to know what you are doing.

Pressure from friends and family should not be what is driving you to surrender

your life to God. You should not make this important decision without thinking

through what it means.

Jesus tells us to repent.

What does it mean to repent? It means that you are sorry for your sins, and that you

do not want to keep on rebelling against God. Repentance is a commitment to turn

away from sin and to follow the path that God wants us to take.

Jesus tells us to confess Him as the Christ.

A person should sincerely state that he believes that

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

"Christ" is not Jesus' last name. It is a title which

means "The Anointed One." To call Jesus the "Christ"

is to declare that Jesus is the leader of God's people,

and that He rules with God's authority.

Jesus tells us to be baptized.

Jesus told His followers to baptize people who wanted to

become Christians. Baptism is one of the sacraments of

the church. That means that God has promised to give

His grace through baptism to the person being baptized.

Baptism can be compared to a peace treaty. A peace treaty

is not the battlefield where the war was won. But if the

leader of the army that lost the war refuses to sign the

peace treaty, no one will affirm that he has truly

surrendered, so no one will promise him that he is truly

at peace. By refusing to sign the treaty, he refuses to

receive the promise of peace. Similarly, a person who

refuses to be baptized is refusing to receive the promise

of forgiveness that God offers.

Jesus tells us that we must be born again.

When the Holy Spirit begins to dwell within the believer, the person is "born again."

The new spiritual nature makes the believer a member of the family of God. You

can receive this new nature the way God says to receive it. God wants you to

become part of His family. And He has told you, in the Bible, how to receive the

promise of forgiveness and a new nature in Christ.

Frequently Asked Questions About Becoming a Christian

What is baptism? Should I have a little bit of water sprinkled on my head, or should I be buried in water?

To answer this question, consider what the New Testament says.

Matthew 3:16 says that after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, "Jesus came up
immediately from the water."

In John 3:23, John the Baptist was baptizing in a place called Aenon near Salim, "because there was much water
there." This shows that baptism required more than just a handful of water.

Acts 8:38 mentions that a Christian preacher named Philip and an African who had been taught about Jesus by Philip
were both in the water when Philip baptized the new believer: "And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the
water, and he baptized him."

Romans 6:4 says, "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

In Colossians 2:12, the apostle Paul describes baptism as an event that involves a burial and a rising-up: "Buried
with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from
the dead." The physical immersion in water pictures the spiritual death of the old, self-centered individual, and
rebirth into the kingdom of God.

Those verses from the Bible show that Jesus' apostles baptized believers by immersing them in water. The question
about the original form of baptism can be answered in another way: by considering the word that the apostles and
their friends used to name the event: they used the Greek word "baptizo." This Greek word means "to immerse, to
submerge -- to cover entirely with water." There was a Greek word for "sprinkle" (rantizo ) but the Bible never uses it
to describe Christian baptism.

After the apostles died, other people in the church kept on spreading the good news about Jesus. Some of them
wrote books, and in some books they mentioned Christian baptism.

The Epistle of Barnabas, written around A.D. 130, was well-known in the early church. It says, "We go down into the
water full of sins and pollutions, but come up again, bringing forth fruit, having in our hearts the fear and hope which
is in Jesus by the Spirit."

A book called the Shepherd of Hermas, written around A.D. 140, says, "Before a man receives the name of the Son of
God, he is ordained unto death, but when he receives that seal, he is freed from death, and assigned unto life. Now
that seal is the water of baptism, into which men go down under the obligation unto death, but come up appointed
unto life."

The Didache ("Teachings") was an early Christian teaching guide, written around A.D. 115. It allowed water to be
poured over a person if immersion was impossible: "Baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit, in living [that is, flowing] water. But if you do not have flowing water, baptize in other water, and if you are
not able to baptize in cold water, do so in warm water. But if you do not have either kind, pour water on the head
three times, in the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit."

This shows that the use of triple-pouring as a substitute for immersion was introduced only as a last resort, when
immersion could not be done. But gradually, people disregarded the Biblical example even when it was possible to
follow it.

I was baptized as a baby. Should I be baptized again?

The New Testament never tells anyone to baptize a baby. Babies cannot believe the good news about Jesus, and
they cannot confess Jesus as their Savior. They cannot repent of their sins, because they have no sins. Even if a
baby does something that would be a sin if a person were to do it deliberately, babies have no knowledge of God's
law. Romans 4:15 says, "Where there is no law there is no transgression."

Millions of people in previous generations have been told that when some water was sprinkled over them when they
were babies, they were baptized. Most of them never learned that the Bible teaches that baptism is for believers, not
for babies. God will only hold people accountable to act according to the knowledge that they have. But when we
find out, from the Bible, that those who wish to join God's kingdom are commanded to be buried in water, we
should act according to the knowledge that we have.

In Acts 19:1-7, some followers of John the Baptist were re-baptized, because at their

first baptism they did not know about Jesus or the Holy Spirit. If a person did not

know what he was doing when he was baptized, or if he was baptized, but not in the

name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then he was never baptized the way the Bible

says a person ought to be baptized. A person in that situation should be immersed as

a believer in order to receive the promise of forgiveness the way God says to receive it.

If it did any good to baptize people who have no faith, why shouldn't a preacher hire some strong men to grab
people, carry them to a river, and dunk them while he proclaims that they have become Christians? That is not much
different from what is done to a baby who does not know what is happening when someone sprinkles water on him.

What about all the people who have never been baptized? And what about people who ask God to forgive their sins
but are prevented from being baptized?

God will take everyone's level of knowledge, ability, and circumstances into account. Consider what Jesus said in
Luke 12:47-48: "And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will,

shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be
beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been
committed, of him they will ask all the more."

The best approach is to leave judgment up to God, who knows each person's heart. The Bible gives us a basis for
the hope that God will be merciful to those who wanted to do His will but did not know what it was. But when we do
know what God wants, we can do more than hope: we can know His promise of forgiveness.

Isn't baptism just a public declaration that a person has joined a

specific congregation or denomination?

On several occasions in the New Testament, people were baptized privately.

So while baptism can show the world that the baptized person has become a

Christian, that is not its primary purpose. Baptism is an appeal to God, not a

show for the world. In the New Testament, once a person was baptized, the

church recognized him as a member of the body of Christ - a person who had

received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean to "receive the gift of the Holy Spirit"?

This means that God will dwell within the believer, guiding him to discern His will and giving him the power to
overcome evil with good. In the early church, the presence of the Holy Spirit was confirmed in many different ways,
including miracle-working, healings, speaking in unknown languages, and interpreting the unknown languages. But
the Bible also speaks of a more excellent way in which God's presence in the believer is expressed: by loving God
and loving one another. When the Holy Spirit dwells within a believer, the believer is transformed, spiritually, into a
new person. This is not something that the believer earns or achieves. It is a free gift from God.

Should I wait a long time to become a Christian?

You should understand that becoming a Christian is a serious and life-changing

commitment. After baptism, the believer will have the responsibility to live under

the rule of Christ Jesus, loving God, loving other people, and sharing the good

news. This is not not something to take lightly. At the same time, we should realize

that as long as we are lost, we are in a desperate situation. A drowning man would

not need to spend a very long time wondering whether or not to grab a life-line.

We should be even more determined to escape being forever banished from the

presence of God.

In the Bible, baptism was received right after a person put his trust in Jesus as the paymrent for sins. In Acts 8:12,
men and women were baptized "when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and
the name of Jesus Christ."

In Acts 8, an African eunuch heard the good news about Jesus, put his trust

in Jesus, and was baptized the same day. In Acts 16, the jailor heard the

word of the Lord and was baptized the same night. In Acts 16, a woman named

Lydia heard the good news and was baptized the same day.

The book of Acts describes how a man named Saul, who was an enemy of the

church, became a Christian. As Saul was pursuing Christians, intending to have

them imprisoned, Jesus appeared to Saul in a vision. Three days later, a Christian

named Ananias came and spoke with Saul. Ananias used these words in

Acts 22:16: "And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash

away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord."

Why are you waiting?

The Promise of Forgiveness