Lesson 14 What Happened to Me? Did you receive the Lord Jesus as your Lord and Saviour as explained in the previous lesson? Then something wonderful has happened to you! God does not work in the same way with every person. Some people feel a flood of joy, love and peace when they surrender to Christ. Other people do not feel anything at first. Feeling is not important at all. Faith is what matters. God does not tell us in the Bible that we will be saved by feelings. Feelings are never permanent. The Bible tells us that we are saved by faith. And remember, Christian faith has a very solid foundation. It is based on the promises of God. So let us find out what has happened to you: 1. You Have Become a Child of God In Lesson 9 we have seen that we cannot change our own hearts. But God can change us. We do not need a long series of re-births in order to become a child of God. We only need one. This new birth is not a new birth of the body, but of the soul. We read in John 1:12 that believing in Christ and receiving him as your Lord and Saviour gives you the right to become a child of God. The Bible also says, "It is through faith that all of you are God's sons in union with Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:26.) This means that now you may call God your heavenly Father. You have become one of the great family of God. All the millions of people around the world, of every nation and language and colour, who also believe in the Lord Jesus, are your brothers and sisters in him. We welcome you into the great family of God! 2. All Your Sins Have Been Forgiven The burden of guilt and sin is completely gone. In the eyes of God you are now as if you have never sinned. Christ has paid your debt of sin completely. "All the prophets spoke about him (Jesus), saying that everyone who believes in him will have his sins forgiven through the power of his name." (Acts 10:43.) What a wonderful joy to know this! The sins that separated you from God have been taken away. The peace of God is now yours to keep in your heart. 3. You Have Eternal Life The new life that you have received is eternal. The Bible says: "God has given us eternal life, and this life has its source in the Son. Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I am writing this to you that you may know that you have eternal life - you that believe in the Son of God." (1 John 5:11-13.) The new life in Christ started the moment that you surrendered yourself to Christ and received him by faith as your Saviour and Lord. The Bible says: "When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new being; the old has gone, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17.) You will find that everything has changed: your desires, your plans, and the way that you see others. You now have Someone greater than yourself to live for: "He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but only for him who died and was raised to life for their sake." (2 Corinthians 5:15.) Now you can start to live for Christ. You no longer have to do good deeds with a selfish motive, to try and deserve a better "Karma" for yourself. Now you can do good deeds out of love for Christ, to show your thankfulness. Eternal life means much more than just a new life here on earth. You can look forward to a joyful eternity after this life. Suffering will be finally taken away from earth when Christ comes again. The bodies of all the dead people will be raised into life again, and the children of God will live with him: "Now God's home is with mankind! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared." (Revelation 21:3-4.) What a wonderful day that will be! 4. The Holy Spirit Has Come to Live in You God knows that we are weak and sinful, and that we cannot live for him in our own power. To live the life of a child of God, to be a Christian in the real sense, all of us need the help of God. Without this power it would be impossible for us to continue on God's way without falling back. God has promised to give us this power that every follower of the Lord Jesus needs. Jesus said, "But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me ... (Acts 1:8) Who the Holy Spirit Is The Holy Spirit is God himself who comes to live in the believer. We have already learnt of God the Father, the creator of the universe, and of God the Son who came to earth and died for our sins, and who rose from the dead. And now we learn about God the Holy Spirit. Does this mean that Christians worship three Gods? No! There is one God and one God only. But he reveals himself to us in these three persons. We will never be able to understand him fully. As a triangle has three sides but the three sides form only one triangle, so God is one but reveals himself in three Persons at the same time: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This we call the Holy Trinity. Now God comes to live in us by his Holy Spirit. He will guide us into all truth, and give us power to pray and witness. He will enable us to live this new life: "But you do not live as your human nature tells you to; instead, you live as the Spirit tells you - if, in fact, God's Spirit lives in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin. If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from death, lives in you, then he who raised Christ from death will also give life to your mortal bodies by the presence of his Spirit in you." (Romans 8:9-11.) A Christian is never alone. The living God lives in him! You can pray now, and thank God that he has come into your life to change it. Thank him that you have become his child. Thank him that your sins have been forgiven. Thank him that eternal life is yours. And finally, thank him that he has come to live in you by his Holy Spirit. Test Yourself No. 14 Answer the following questions and compare your answers to the answers you will find if you click here: [answers] 1. What do we become by faith according to Galatians 3:26? 2. What do we receive by faith according to: 2.1 Acts 10:43 2.2 1 John 5:13 3. Who comes to live in every true Christian according to Romans 8:9? 4. What word would you use to describe God the Father, the Son and the Holy  Spirit as he revealed himself to us in the Bible?