Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him
both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
So the steps to get right with God:
1. Believe the gospel of Jesus.
2. Repent
3. Be Baptized (unless you die right after you repent (see: the thief on the cross)).
So step 1 is pretty easy. The Gospel of Jesus is this: God created man and established a way that he should live, man rebelled against that way. This rebellion broke man's relationship with God, the very thing man was created for. Since God is perfectly good and perfectly just he MUST punish man for this rebellion, but man cannot endure God's infinite punishment. Jesus is God's Son, perfect in every way, he was crucified. This was done as a punishment for your sin, in this way His righteousness became yours and allows you to now come into fellowship with God. On the 3rd day after his death on the cross Jesus rose from the grave, to show He in fact was who he said he was and to show that he has the power to conquer sin and death. When you come into fellowship with God you receive eternal life and his Holy Spirit, who is God, and a counselor, he guides you and helps you to live a righteous life, no priest necessary, you can now approach God as an individual. That's pretty much it, either you believe it or your don't. If you don't believe, you can stop reading now, however there is a cool video at the end.
Step 3 is really easy, it's just getting dunked under water. Getting dunked may seem kind of silly, but when you first believe and repent, you want to please God, and you have no idea how, so God made it easy...get dunked under water for Jesus...it makes Him happy, don't ask me why, it just does. Really it's an act of grace on God's part. He made this all so simple, we don't need to build any roadblocks, however we do need to follow through with it. If you're a Christian and you haven't been baptized then there's no way around the fact that your living in disobedience to God's word (which is sin by definition).
OK so what about step 2. What is repentance? Well it's identifying and turning away from sin. This video pretty much sums it all up:
Be sure to watch the whole video.
For my friends at Fresh Start: We're going to be baptizing more, so this Sunday (April 19, 2009), if you believe, if you've repented, show up in swim trunks...we might start keeping some handy for those who decide to repent on the spot.
For my friends NOT at Fresh Start: If you go to church, encourage people to believe, repent, and be baptized and then to love God, love others, and make disciples. If you don't go to church, well stop by sometime at Fresh Start, we preach the gospel and always have lunch.
and for everyone: Remember, Love God, Love Others, and Make Disciples.
In Christ,
Dax
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