You come to a place in your life when you realize that you are a sinner, and that to get to heaven you need to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. This may have happened to you as a child or as an adult. The moment you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior is the exact moment that you became a Christian.
But let me ask you a question: have you grown in your Christian life since becoming a Christian? At salvation you do become a Christian, but the Christian life is so much more than just accepting Christ as Savior. John Gregory Mantle summarizes a believer’s relationship with Christ when he said, “There is a great difference between realizing, ‘On that cross He was crucified for me,’ and ‘On that cross I am crucified with Him.’ The one aspect brings us deliverance from sin’s condemnation, the other from sin’s power.”
The Scriptures talk much about you living your life in the absence of sin’s power. One such verse is seen in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for Me.” This verse tells you that you can no longer do what you want to do. You are to live your life in accordance to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Being a true Christian, you are to not do the things in your life that bring pleasure to you without regard to what the Scripture teaches. Yes, being a true Christians requires you to not do some things that you want to do, because that action does not agree with the Bible. When you live your life in accordance with you living your life because “Christ lives in me,” means living your life doing what Jesus would do it that situation. Now, that is being a true Christian!
