How to approach (come near) God to become a real Christian
John: 6:51-56
1. What is a Christian ?
A Christian is a person who Believes in Jesus Christ, goes to the church on Sunday, Gives grace at the table, practices praying and reading bible daily, contributes the church’s services, studies in the theological college etc.. According to these outwardly performing manner we are all classified as Christians.
However is this definition of Christian complies with the truth revealed in the bible ? Or is there a inward specialty of being a Christian ? Of course there is. According to the Ephesians 1:13-14, only those who have the holy spirit as the seal are the genuine Christian i.e. who has the eternal life.
The next question is how do you know if one has the holy spirit ? In fact this is a very fundamental question in Christianity. The answer is in Galatians 5:22-23 that the fruits of the Holy Spirit make the believers distinctive from the non believers. A matured Christians will obtain the characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We can see easily that these are the characteristics of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it mean that a mature Christian will eventually become Jesus-alike.
2. Why can’t we always obtain the above mentioned characteristics of the Christians?
It is because we are still sinful despite of being a Christian. Sin are not just those obvious sinful behaviors such as hatred, jealousy, greed, stealing, adultery, but also the hidden original sinful nature: “self knowledge of Good and Evil “ (see Genesis 2:17, 25, 3:6-7). That is why we not always full of the Holy Spirit. Those characteristics are the fruit of the Holy Spirit. If we are full of the Holy Spirit, we obtain these characteristics, If we are not full of the Holy Spirit, we do not obtain them.
3. How can we be full of the Holy Spirit ?
Holy Spirit is a person of the Triune God. To be full of the Holy Spirit , or to approach God it requires that we are sinless. In Old Testament, The Israelite had to offer sacrifices for their sins to be purified in order to come near God. In the New Testament, John 6:56 reveals the new way to come near Jesus or God:
In verses 54-56 he repeats again and again the eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the present tense. So it is not as simple as a lot of theologists interpret these verses saying it means Jesus is the bread of our spiritual life. This is a process of helping us to come near Jesus any time we want.:
John 6: 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
1. Drink his blood: confess our sin so our sin can be purified by Jesus blood.
2. Eat his flesh (His flesh is his word or truth in John 1:14): it means to understand his word and to put into practice of his word in our daily living.
These two processes can be attained by the help of the Holy Spirit:
1. Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin so we can confess our sin to Jesus in order to be purified (John 16:8). This is the process of Justification. So passively we rely our Lord Jesus’ blood to purify our sin all the times.
2. The Holy spirit teaches and guides us into all truth (John 16:13) and helps us to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) to actively perform these truth. This is the process of the Sanctification.
4. Conclusion:
In order to be a mature Christian with all the good characteristics of Jesus, we have to come near Jesus commonly by prayers :Firstly to ask Jesus to purify our sin ( “self knowledge of good and evil”) with his blood. After that we can ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon us so we can be full of the Holy Spirit and obtain all his Fruit.