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The Basics of the Walk
ow that I am saved, what do I do next? This is a very common question for people who have just recently been saved. Awhile back ago, I read that 50% of people who get saved drop out of their walks with the Lord within the first year or two.
I believe the number one reason why so many new Christians drop out is because they do not know what to really do next. They either do not get the proper teaching and coaching from other Christians they are associated with, or the Church they have joined does not have any type of progressive teaching system in place to lead them on their new journey.
The apostle Paul says you have to "work out" your salvation with fear and trembling. Salvation is just the beginning. God has a purpose and a plan for each person�s life. Once you get saved and become born again, God will now set out an incredible adventure for you to embark on. You are now being given a brand new life with a brand new start. All old things have now passed away and all things have now been made truly brand new.
Here is what I call the basics. These are the areas that each new Christian has to be gradually led into if he or she is really going to enter into the real walk with the Lord. I�ll list them in the proper order and then I will comment on each one under the appropriate captions below.
Full Surrender
Become Spirit-Filled
Establish Faith and Trust in God
Walk in all of God's Ways
Obey all of God's Commandments
Develop a Personal Relationship with God
Seek after the Knowledge of God
Establish relationships with other Christians
Join a Good Spirit-Filled Church
Here are my thoughts on each of the above.
1. Full Surrender
The first thing each Christian has to do after they get saved is to completely surrender their entire life over to God the Father. Jesus has to become LORD over your life, not just your Savior.
If you want to find what God�s call and plan is going to be for your life, and exactly what He wants to do with your life, then you are going to have to be willing to completely surrender every aspect of your life over to Him. It's your all for His all.
And when I say to fully surrender your entire life over to God the Father, I mean to fully surrender everything. You can hold absolutely nothing back. If you do not fully surrender everything over to God, then you will handcuff God and prevent Him from working full force in your life.
You have to become both saved and surrendered. All Christians are obviously saved, but many are not fully surrendered to the Lord, and that is why very little happens after they initially get saved.
I will give you all the Scripture verses in another article that will show you why God wants this full surrender from each one of us and the argument as to why each Christian needs to do this. For now, I just want to highlight the basics for reference purposes.
2. Become Spirit-Filled
The second step after a person makes a full surrender to God the Father is they need to become Spirit-filled. They need to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot walk this walk without the power of the Holy Spirit operating in your life. It is the Holy Spirit�s job to guide you into all truth and to teach you all things. He cannot properly do all of this unless He is released from your spirit to come up into your soul. Again, I will go into much more detail on how to receive this gift for those who do not have it in another article.
3. Establish Faith and Trust in God
Once you completely surrender your entire life over to God the Father and receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the next step is to establish faith and trust in God. The only thing that will bring you into God�s realm is faith and belief. Nothing else will!
And the beautiful thing about this is God is only looking for a small amount of faith to get started. The Bible says that faith the size of a mustard seed will move a mountain. Your faith can grow, but God does not expect it to grow overnight. All God asks is that you give Him just a little bit to work with, and He will more than prove Himself to you so that you can learn to completely trust Him to guide you on your new journey.
4. Walk in All of God's Ways
The Bible says we now have to learn how to walk in all the ways of the Lord. The Bible is the number one source where you will learn all of the ways of our Lord. I will be listing what these ways are in other articles. These are the rules of the game.
If you want to play baseball, the first thing you are going to have to learn are the actual rules of the game. You cannot step out onto the playing field unless you know exactly what those rules are.
It is the exact same thing with God�s playing field. If you do not learn what His rules and ways are going to be for you in this life, then the devil and his demons will come in on you for major attacks and try to take you out. God says in the Bible that His people will perish for having lack of knowledge.
It is a matter of life and death to learn what God�s ways are if you want to live out the allotted amount of time that you still have left down here on this earth. People�s lives are shortened on this earth due to stupidity and not knowing the ways of God.
5. Obey All of God's Commandments
In the Bible, God also lays out for us what He does not want us doing. The Bible says that God lays out before each one of us a choice on how to live this life. You can either choose God and live this life the way He wants you to live it - or you can choose to live this life your way or the world's way, and then end up reaping eventual death.
There is only one way to live your life and that is God's way, not your way! God specifically lays out certain sins and transgressions that He will want you to stay out of. I will be touching on exactly what some of these other sins and transgressions are in other articles.
The Bible says that we have to develop a good healthy fear of the Lord. This means developing a reverent and healthy respect for God, His ways and His commandments. This healthy fear of the Lord will help keep you out of serious sins that could end up ruining your life.
6. Develop a Personal Relationship With God
The number one reason I believe God created the human race was for intimate fellowship. God wants to establish a deep, personal and intimate love relationship with each person He has created.
I believe God actually longs for this. It�s not that God needs us humans to exist, but for some strange reason, and even to the amazement of the angels in heaven, God seems to have some type of special love and longing for us humans and wants more than anything to establish this personal love relationship with each one of us.
Again, I will go into much more detail on this in additional articles, as this is a whole subject all in itself. I will give you all of the appropriate Scripture verses to prove this point and show you how to really enter into this kind of personal relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
7. Seek After the Knowledge of God
God places an extremely high value on the pursuit of knowledge. Once you get saved and become born again, God will expect you to grow in the knowledge of Him, His Son, His Holy Spirit and all of His ways. The main sources of God-knowledge in this life are the following:
A. The Bible - This is absolutely the number one source of spiritual knowledge available to man down here on this earth. Each Christian thus has to spend some type of regular, quality time in the Bible in order to learn more about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and all of Their ways.
B. Other Books - God has anointed many of His teachers to be able to teach from His Word. There are many good quality books in the Christian bookstores that Christians can feed off of in addition to the Bible.
C. Tapes and CD's - There are also many good teaching cassette tapes and CD�s from anointed teachers that Christians can also feed from.
D. TV/Radio - Many of God's anointed teachers also have TV and/or radio ministries where you can either watch or hear them teach from God's Word.
If you�ll notice on the above 4 sources of knowledge, God does give you a wide variety of options to choose from in order to grow from the knowledge that He wants you to have about Him.
8. Establish Relationships With Other Christians
Once you enter in on this real walk with the Lord, you will need to develop relationships with other Christians. God will start to do some real incredible things in your life and you will need others to share your walk with. God will lead you to the people that He will want you to connect with. You will have to have other Christians to feed with and to share your walk with.
9. Join a Good Spirit-Filled Church
I would personally recommend that each new born again Christian ask God which church He would like for them to join. There are different levels of the anointing in all of the different churches, and God knows best which one would be best suited for your own spiritual development and growth. God will make sure that He gets through to each person as to which church He would really like for them to join.
Conclusion
I will go into much more detail on items 1-8 in upcoming articles as they are all subjects in themselves. I just wanted to make a short list of what I feel the basics are in becoming active in God after you have been saved. |
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