Advice for a young new Christian? (Seeking advice!)

Hi beepii, and welcome to the forums! Very glad to hear that you have decided to follow Jesus. There is probably a lot of advice that could be given, so is there any particular issue you have in mind, or are you looking for resources for a certain topic, or...?

If just general advice, then I would highly recommend finding a Bible-believing church and get connected, if you haven't already, and read the Bible and pray every day. You don't have to read or pray for hours on end; most Christians don't but most also likely don't pray enough. Ask God for help and for wisdom, and he will lead you.

There is, of course, a chance that family and friends will reject you or ridicule you for your beliefs, but this is to be expected. Jesus warns about this, so don't be discouraged. It's why it's important to get connected with a solid, Bible-believing church.

I would also add that it may be helpful to get involved with a small Bible study group. It can be easier to ask questions and engage in dialog compared to a church setting.

beepii said:

Hello,

I hope this finds you well, I'm posting in hopes of gaining some advice on how to progress in the early stages of my faith. For some context, I'm 19 and recently decided to wholeheartedly embrace Christianity after a few years of contemplation. I was raised in a non-religious household (not atheists just not practising any religion) and I don't know any Christians Irl. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you

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At the heart of Christianity stands a Person: Jesus Christ. All of "the faith" is - or ought to be - oriented on him and a daily, concrete experience of his life in you by the Person of the Holy Spirit (called the "Spirit of Christ" - Romans 8:9; Philippians 1:19). Being a Christian, or "little Christ," is about being more and more like him in how you think, what you desire, and how you behave. But only from Christ, from the Spirit of Christ, more precisely, will you find the life of Christ that can fill you, change you and overflow from you. Beware, then, of simply accumulating data about Christianity, the religion, rather than experiencing God in the Person of the Holy Spirit every day. God has reconciled sinners to himself so that they might enjoy fellowship - intimate communion - with Him all the time.

1 Corinthians 1:9
9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

2 Corinthians 13:14
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

1 John 1:3
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

What does fellowship with God look like? Well, God the Holy Spirit will:

- convict you of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8; Revelation 2-3)
- teach you God's truth (John 14:26; John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16)
- strengthen you in times of temptation and testing (Ephesians 3:16; Ephesians 6:10; Philippians 2:13; Philippians 4:13)
- comfort you in seasons of sorrow and pain (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
- transform you into a living reflection of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 4:7-11; Romans 8:29; Galatians 5:22-23)

As the Holy Spirit does these things in your life, he "bears witness with your spirit" that you are truly a born-again child of God. That is, he shows you he is within you, as the Bible promises He will be in every truly saved person (John 14:16-17; 1 John 4:13; Romans 8:9-14; Titus 3:5-8), and will make you more like Jesus; and as you are more like Jesus, you see God more clearly and so can enjoy Him without hindrance. This is the essence of the Christian life.

If you want some good teaching on this whole matter of the Spirit-filled life, here are some links to YouTube videos that will give you some:

beepii said:

Hello,

I hope this finds you well, I'm posting in hopes of gaining some advice on how to progress in the early stages of my faith. For some context, I'm 19 and recently decided to wholeheartedly embrace Christianity after a few years of contemplation. I was raised in a non-religious household (not atheists just not practising any religion) and I don't know any Christians Irl. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you

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Hi and welcome to the forums. And welcome to the Faith! As the song says "All the angels in Heaven above rejoice when there's a soul saved."

As to what you do now, start to pray that God would bring some good solid believers across your path. As CS Lewis once said: "The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion." Get yourself a good Bible and start to read it regularly. See if you can find a good church near your residence.

Hey All,
Welcome to the family beepii. You get my hug of the day. (Air hugs) You have been given some good advice here. Please follow up with it. Let me agree with and add to it the following:
1. Read the Bible everyday, even if it is just one verse. Then, as you have time, think about what you read. Is there anything you can do to apply the teaching to your life?
2. Pray every day.. It does not have to be anything elaborate or formal. Talk to God as you would talk to a friend. I do it in the mornings while I shave and shower. I thank God for the day and ask Him to lead me through it. Before bed time, I pray and thank God for the day, and share my concerns. (You don't have to do it exactly like this. This is just an example.)
3. As mentioned above, find a church and get involved. Learn about God. Have fellowship with others. Participate in their various activities. Ask if they have a new believers class.
4. Be an example of the believer to others. Be accountable. I can almost always spot a fellow believer by their actions; how they conduct themselves and how they treat others. They act differently in a good way. People notice.
5. Guard your joy. Let it be your guide. I can dig a ditch with joy in my heart. I can be sad and still have joy. But I cannot sin with joy. If your joy is missing, that is a signal to examine your situation.
(Wow the dude just got all heavy here.) Yeah I did. This is important. Learning these principles, and putting them into action, will change your life. I hope this helps and keep walking.
May God bless,
Taz

beepii said:

Hello,

I hope this finds you well, I'm posting in hopes of gaining some advice on how to progress in the early stages of my faith. For some context, I'm 19 and recently decided to wholeheartedly embrace Christianity after a few years of contemplation. I was raised in a non-religious household (not atheists just not practising any religion) and I don't know any Christians Irl. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you

Click to expand...

Greetings, beepii.

Without necessarily disagreeing with anything else that has been said, in the early stages of your faith I would place ONE thing above all else and that is Bible reading. Both church and fellowship can sometimes become more complicated depending upon who you end up in association with, whereas letting the Lord Jesus Christ Himself teach you through His word by sitting at His feet will keep you from getting distracted from the One voice you need to master hearing above all others.

And pray that this be your primary goal early on. So long as you master hearing His voice, the rest is just learning to deal with all the various circumstances of life.

God bless, and congratulations on choosing Christ. That is one decision you will never regret.
Hidden

Welcome to the forum. James chapter 1, All wisdom and knowledge comes from God. Pray to God for understanding and wisdom. Dont forget to repent sins to God and be forgiven. We're in the flesh, and we sin.
I would advise you to buy a king James companion bible and STRONGS concordance. The old testament is Hebrew. And most of new testament is Greek.
I recommend shepherds chapel, pastor dennis murray. He teaches sound doctrine and chapter by chapter. He's on YouTube.
Whatever you decide, I wish you all the best.

Salvation means to be whole mind, body and soul as we surrender our will to God and allow his will to work in our lives by applying Gods word to every aspect of our lives. This allows us to know the mind of Christ and all the promises of God for our own well being so we can face anything that tries to come against us while here on this earth so we can triumph and be victorious through the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Grace pardons us and mercy loves us unconditionally.

Jesus was teaching Nicodemus in John 3:1-7 that it was a Spiritual rebirth or renewal of our spirit that through Gods spoken word we can reconcile our past sins through repentance to be made sinless again before God. We are all born with a sin nature because of sin being introduced into the world through Satan’s deceit when he told Eve it was alright to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil even though God forbid them to eat of it.

Our flesh will always sin because that is our nature and God can not see our flesh because of our sins nor can he hear the prayers of a sinner, John 9:31, and this is why we need to renew our Spiritual inner man because sin separates us from God as God is spirit, not flesh and blood, and can only recognize his own children by what spirit is living in their hearts. We have to renew, rebirth - born again, Gods Spirit within us in order to be called a child of God and see the kingdom of heaven. We now put off the old man (flesh) and put on the new man (Spirit). We are renewed by the word of God and through the Holy Spirit teaching us of all things, Romans 8:6, 8.

The basics we need to learn are written in Colossians 3:1-17 and if we follow these guidelines then we will remain in the will of God. The best place to start for learning and understanding Gods Salvation is reading the book of John to learn who Jesus was and is in our own lives and to know anyone can come unto Gods Salvation no matter who you are or what you have done God loves us all unconditionally.

First and foremost pray and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you and give you understanding. Second pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to a church, or a Bible study group where you will be fed the word of God to help you in your Spiritual growth. We too are here to help you so never be afraid to ask questions for that's how we learn. God bless you.

beepii said:

Hello,

I hope this finds you well, I'm posting in hopes of gaining some advice on how to progress in the early stages of my faith. For some context, I'm 19 and recently decided to wholeheartedly embrace Christianity after a few years of contemplation. I was raised in a non-religious household (not atheists just not practising any religion) and I don't know any Christians Irl. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you

Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum,
As you will see there are lots of different advice, around reading the bible etc.

My threepenny worth of advice would be to check out the churches in your area, look at there Web sites, listen/watch some of there online services to get an idea of what they're l8ke and start attending one that you think suits you and has a number of people your age attending it.

Alternatively look up the christianityexplored Web site, which will have a list of churches in your area for you to check out.

Of course you can always post questions here.

Hello beepii, my advice is much the same as the advice that you've already been given.

1. Bible/God's word/Scripture - read it every day and pray while you do. This is perhaps the principal way that we 'dialogue' with God. He speaks to us through His word, and we reply back to Him in prayer as we read, with rejoicing, thanksgiving, awe, as well any questions that come up, and/or about whatever comes to mind You are His daughter now, and He, your loving, heavenly Father (or "Abba"/Daddy), and Christianity is all about the living and growing relationship that we have with Him .. e.g. John 17:3.

BTW, if you are wondering where to start reading the Bible, I'd recommend the Gospel of John in the New Testament (the 4th of the four Gospels in the Bible). And if you have any questions as you read along (and you will ), don't hesitate to take them to your pastor, and/or bring them back here and ask us (the "Word", who is first mentioned in John 1:1-4, 14, is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, just FYI).

Finally, click here to read some of the things that the Bible has to say about the Bible

2. Prayer - having a pattern to pray by can be helpful to keep you on track, when your prayer time is specially set apart, or simply spontaneous. The A.C.T.S. model is a good one for this purpose. Check it out here or here if you'd like to.


You can/should begin to pray/talk to God throughout the day. Include Him in your day, IOW. Believe it or not, your Creator (who is also the Creator of the Universe), wants to spend one on one time with you

This is often called "practicing the presence of God" in your daily life. The way to do so is to begin taking notice of the things that are all around you, things from Him that you can rejoice in and be thankful to Him for, things as simple as the peace that you feel when warm summer breeze hits your face, for instance, and almost everything else in your life (as everything good really does come from Him ).

In reference to the above, see: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

Believe it or not, you will (eventually) find that you can even be thankful for/rejoice in the difficult times in your life, knowing that He is going through them with you, and that He has promised to cause things, both good AND bad things, to work together for your good (even though it doesn't feel like is the case while you are going through them/the bad times, that is) .. e.g. Romans 8:28 cf Hebrews 12:7-11.

I haven't talked to you about church/fellowship with other believers or witnessing yet, but I think I'll wait to do so in my next post (as this one seems like it's already becoming too long).

God bless you!!

--David

Here's My Advice:

Choose to have faith, do what the word (bible) says to the best of your ability, choose the God way and not the world way or popular or sinful way.

Choose to believe that you cannot lose your salvation, but make a commitment to never put God or your salvation to the test.

If you can't meet with Christians in a church, try to gain Christian friends and supports that can assist your spiritual walk and journey in the Lord.

Hope this helps blessings to you, CFNET Righteous Beast Forums, and the Colossal Spiritual Fam of Cristo de Yasu IJN

congrats on your decision!

1. Christianity is more of a relationship, as others have mentioned, grow that relationship, by reading the Bible, praying, spending time with God

2. I also would advice finding a church, a Christian community - just to give a heads up, there is no such thing as a perfect church, but I believe it's essential that you be connected to a church, pray and ask God for discernment and guidance as to which church to go to

3. as there are no perfect churches, there are no perfect Christians, ourselves included, we all fall short, there will be times when we all fall or stumble in our walk with God, don't fret it too much, don't beat yourself over the head with it, learn from it, get up, confess and repent and keep walking with God

Blessings to you, Beepi