Tim Hawkins - I'm A Christian

33 minutes that will rock your world...

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How to Know God Personally

What does it take to begin a relationship with God? Devote yourself to unselfish religious deeds? Become a better person so that God will accept you?

You may be surprised that none of those things will work. But God has made it very clear in the Bible how we can know Him.

The following principles will explain how you can personally begin a relationship with God, right now, through Jesus Christ...

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Principle 1:

God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

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God's Love
"God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." ¹

God's Plan
[Christ speaking] "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly" [that it might be full and meaningful]. ²

Why is it that most people are not experiencing the abundant life? Because...

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Principle 2:

All of us sin and our sin has separated us from God.

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We Are Sinful
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." ³
We were created to have fellowship with God; but, because of our stubborn self-will, we chose to go our own independent way, and fellowship with God was broken. This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is evidence of what the Bible calls sin.

We Are Separated
"The wages of sin is death" [spiritual separation from God]. ⁴
This diagram illustrates that God is holy and people are sinful. A great gulf separates us. The arrows illustrate that we are continually trying to reach God and the abundant life through our own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or religion -- but we inevitably fail.

The third law explains the only way to bridge this gulf...

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Principle 3:

Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin. Through Him we can know and experience God's love and plan for our life.

 

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He Died in Our Place
"God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." ⁵

He Rose From the Dead
"Christ died for our sins...He was buried...He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures...He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred..." ⁶

He Is the Only Way to God
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.'" ⁷

This diagram illustrates that God has bridged the gulf which separates us from Him by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.

It is not enough just to know these three principles...

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Principle 4:

We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

 

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We Must Receive Christ
"As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name." ⁸

We Receive Christ Through Faith
"By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." ⁹

When We Receive Christ, We Experience a New Birth
We Receive Christ by Personal Invitation
[Christ speaking] "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him." ¹⁰

Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self (repentance) and trusting Christ to come into our lives to forgive our sins and to make us what He wants us to be. Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for your sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. You receive Jesus Christ by faith, as an act of the will.

These two circles represent two kinds of lives:


Which circle best describes your life?
Which circle would you like to have represent your life?

The following explains how you can receive Christ:

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer

Prayer is talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. The following is a suggested prayer:

"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be."

If this prayer expresses the desire of your heart, then you can pray this prayer right now and Christ will come into your life, as He promised.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart?

Yes, I just asked Jesus into my life »

I may want to ask Jesus into my life,
but I have a question I would like answered first »

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(1) John 3:16 (NIV); (2) John 10:10; (3) Romans 3:23; (4) Romans 6:23; (5) Romans 5:8; (6) 1 Corinthians 15:3-6; (7) John 14:6; (8) John 1:12; (9) Ephesians 2:8,9; (10) Revelation 3:20

Adapted from Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws and Would You Like to Know God Personally, by Dr. Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

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Defending the Faith Part 3: Using Columbo to Lead the Way

by Greg Koukl

The third use of Columbo takes us on the offensive, yet in an inoffensive way. We will ask a different kind of question, sometimes called a “leading question.”

As the name suggests, leading questions take the other person in the direction we want them to go. Think of yourself like an archer shooting at a target. Questions are your arrows. Your target will be different in different situations. Sometimes your goal will be to defeat what you think is a bad argument or a flawed point of view. Your questions will be “aimed” at that purpose. Or you may want to use questions to indirectly explain or advance your own ideas. Sometimes you will set up the terms of the conversation using questions to put you in a more beneficial position for your next move.

In each of these cases, questions accomplish two things mere statements cannot. Every time you ask a question and get a favorable response, the person is telling you he understands the point you’re making and he agrees with it, at least provisionally. He takes another step forward with you in the thinking process.

Here’s why this is so important. Ultimately, we want to win someone over to our point of view. But we do not want to “force” our opinions on him. Instead, we want to persuade him. When the steps to a conclusion are both clear and reasonable, it is much easier to convince someone because he can see the route clearly. He can even retrace it on his own if he wants to. With each question, we lead him closer toward our destination. In this way, we bring him along on the journey.

Generally, your leading questions will be used to inform, persuade, set up, or refute. Let me show you how this tactic plays out in a specific example.

As you step out as an ambassador for Christ, inevitably you will be asked what I call “the question.” It’s one of the most important questions anyone can ask, but it’s also one of the most difficult because the correct answer—a simple “yes”—would be wildly misleading.

“You’re saying that just because someone doesn’t believe in Jesus they are going to Hell?"

Someone once said if you word the question right, you can win any debate. This question is a classic case in point. A simple “yes” would be the correct answer, but it actually would distort the truth.

Remember that the first responsibility of an ambassador is knowledge—an accurately informed mind. Knowing that people need to trust in Jesus or face judgment, though, is not enough. Since this truth does not give an accurate sense of why Jesus matters, God seems petty, pitching people into Hell because of some inconsequential detail of Christian theology.

I addressed the issue of why Jesus is the only way when the question came up during a book promotion at a local Barnes & Noble. I met an attorney there who didn’t understand why he, a Jew, needed Jesus. He believed in God, and he was doing his best to live a moral life. Those were the important things, it seemed to him—how he lived, not what he believed. Here is how I used Columbo questions to lead him to a proper understanding of the cross.

“Let me ask you a question,” I began. “Do you think people who commit moral crimes ought to be punished?”

“Well, since I’m a prosecuting attorney,” he chuckled, “I guess I do.”

“Good. So do I. Now, a second question: Have you ever committed any moral crimes?”

He paused for a moment. This was getting personal. “Yes,” he nodded, “I guess I have.”

“So have I,” I offered candidly, agreeing with him again. “But that puts us both in a tight spot, doesn’t it? We both believe people who do bad things should be punished, and we both believe we’re guilty on that score.” I waited a moment for the significance to sink in. “Do you know what I call that?” I asked. “I call that bad news.”

In less than 60 seconds I had accomplished a remarkable thing with my two questions. I didn’t have to convince this man he was a sinner. He was telling me. I didn’t have to convince him he deserved to be punished. He was telling me.

I was tapping into a deep intuition every person shares: knowledge of his own guilt and a realization that his guilt should be punished. And I didn’t do it arrogantly or in an obnoxious, condescending way. I freely admitted I was in the same trouble he was.

Now that we agreed on the problem, it was time to give the solution. (This is where the “knowledge” part of the ambassador equation is so vital.)

“This is where Jesus comes in,” I explained. “We both know we’re guilty. That’s the problem. So God offers a solution: a pardon, free of charge. But clemency is on His terms, not ours. Jesus is God’s means of pardon. He personally paid the penalty in our place. He took the rap for our crimes. No one else did that. Only Jesus. Now we have a choice to make. Either we take the pardon and go free, or turn it down and pay for our crimes ourselves.”

In this conversation I handled an awkward question by combining two things: my knowledge of what Jesus accomplished on the cross with asking leading questions. My questions led the attorney, step by step, to an answer to his question.

You can employ the Columbo tactic to take the conversation in an entirely new direction. Instead of using questions to gather information, questions can be very effective to lead someone in the direction we want the conversation to go engaging the other person’s thoughts the whole way. Such “leading questions” often work better than statements to explain our view, to set up the discussion in a way that makes it easier for us to make our point, to soften our challenge to another’s view, or to indirectly exploit a flaw we detect in his thinking.

Unlike the first two uses of Columbo, this one requires knowledge of some kind. When we know what we want to accomplish (e.g., to inform, to persuade, to set-up, or to refute), we can use leading questions to achieve our purpose. This is a skill that develops over time, so if you stall out at first, don’t be discouraged. Instead of trying to force a conversation you don’t have the resources to pursue, you can simply move on knowing you have done the best that we could for the moment.

If someone’s thinking is flawed, the key to finding the error is to listen carefully to the reasons for his views, then ask if his conclusions follow from his evidence. Point out errors with questions rather than statements. You might soften your challenge by phrasing your concern as a request for clarification or by suggesting an alternative with the words “Have you considered…” before offering your own ideas.

Next week: Columbo - The First Question

For more extensive tactics training go to http://www.str.org/ and look for Tactics in Defending the Faith Mentoring Series or STRi DVD interactive training in our online store or call Stand to Reason at 1-800-2-REASON.

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