…with Jesus, upon believing the Gospel, by starting a daily relationship with Him and being prepared for baptism.
Step One in Following Jesus.
We learn how to follow Jesus by looking at His story in the four Gospels, which reveal to us how He made disciples. This first step flows right out of the experience of the first followers of Jesus. They heard the Good News about Jesus preached by John the Baptist, which described Him as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, existing before John, anointed by the Holy Spirit (the Messiah) and the Son of God. When they heard this Good News they believed it and immediately started a relationship with Jesus by responding to His first of four invitations or next steps to being His disciple, which is “Come and See”. This was Jesus inviting them to experience who He was and what the Scriptures reveal Him to be, for by the next day they were convinced He was indeed the Messiah who the prophets wrote about. They and several over new disciples were baptized as a way to publicly symbolize their faith in Jesus. Read John 1:29-51, 3:22, 26. See this in it’s historical setting by watching Following Jesus…
Believe the Gospel
For more on the Good News about Jesus and His Kingdom, click the image above.
The word "Gospel” means Good News. It is the Good News about Jesus and His Kingdom. Or more specifically, the Gospel is the Good News about the love of God revealed in Jesus and Him crucified for your salvation and the establishment of His Kingdom. This is the epic, unfolding story that the entire Bible is telling us. It means no matter what you’ve done God loves you, has forgiven you and made you right with Himself through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Messiah. He now gives you a new life in Christ that is full of the Holy Spirit who fills you with love, joy, peace and so much more! Do you believe this? For more on the Gospel read Believe the Good News!
Start a Daily Relationship
Life In Christ
Learn how to have a vibrant, joy-filled relationship with Jesus through reading, meditating and journaling through His story in Scripture! Available now in Print or eBook.
Once you’ve believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as we’ve seen above, your heart’s desire and first priority is to experience a relationship with the One in whom you’ve believed. Any healthy relationship is based on being with someone and communicating with each other. Therefore, a healthy, growing and thriving relationship with Jesus flows out of being with Him by listening to Him through His word, talking to Him in prayer and His abiding presence in you through the Holy Spirit. This joy-filled daily experience with Jesus is characterized by reading, meditating and journaling through Scripture, which is something we call the Life in Christ daily devotional journal. Let us show you how…
Get Baptized
Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:18-20 that new disciples are to be baptized, or fully immersed in water, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Being that names often represent character in Scripture, Jesus is in essence saying that being baptized in water is symbolic of being full immersed in God’s character of love revealed in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. When you are lowered into the water you are identifying with His death and burial, meaning that the old you that was a slave to a life of sin is gone. Then when you are raised up out of the water you are identifying with Jesus’ resurrection and therefore you are entering a new life in Jesus and are welcoming the subsequent baptism of the Holy Spirit. If you are near the Northern Virginia area, we’d be happy to prepare you for this experience!
