Being a Christian

Recently I was asked "what does being a Christian mean to you?" and I replied with something along the lines of "it means being different and having something to stand up for." But it's so much more than that. Now that I've had more time to think about the question, I've had more time to think about all of the things that I wish I had said. 

Like I said, being a Christian is more than just being different and having something to stand up for. It's being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and being washed clean of your sins by His blood. It's never being alone because God is always with you. That in itself is a real comfort to me because I've known what it feels like to be alone, but God is always with me, so I never have to feel alone.

 It's also having someone to go to that knows more than we could possibly imagine. Because we're just humans. We don't know everything, no matter how much we'd like to believe so. But God knows everything. He created the heavens and the earth and the depths of the sea and the stars in the sky and the far off galaxies that we can't even see from where we stand, but He breathed us to life. He knew us before we were even in the womb. Without God, we're nothing. Our days on earth are numbered and after we're gone, we'll be forgotten, but if we have Jesus in our hearts and we've accepted Him as Savior, admitting that we've sinned and asking for forgiveness from those sins, we can have something so much better after death than being forgotten by the people of earth that will just move on. We get to go to heaven, to see God face to face. 

But there's still so much more than that. God is great. He's amazing and awesome and powerful enough to have created the heavens and the earth in the beginning (Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"). All of the beauty that we see in this world was all created by His hands. All of these complicated science things with atoms and microscopic particles that we can't see but the biology books tell us exist and they're always active--all of those tiny little things that make up this world, they were all created by God. Everything is far too complex to have simply happened. Everything from the tiny caterpillar that turns into the beautiful butterfly to the galaxies ten million light years away that we'll never get to was all created by God. And then He created us, all of us. We were created by God. We didn't just happen. We weren't thrown out into the world to be just the next person to make the population clock go up a number. We were created for something so much more than this.

God loved us enough to create us. He even loved us enough to send His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross to save us from our sins. God loves us and it's the greatest love in the world. Another thing that I wish I had said was that being a Christian means to me that I get to have a close and personal relationship with God, and that's irreplaceable. No matter what stupid crap I do, God won't ever leave me. But I can't say that about people. Everyone makes mistakes and messes up, and people don't stay and some relationships don't last forever and it doesn't take much to end them, but no matter how far I go astray, God will always be faithful and will always be loyal. If I go too far out, God will always be waiting for me to come back. And you can't say that about everyone. 

I get to have a relationship with God, who created everything I know and love, and placed me here for a reason only He knows. But besides that, I have someone I can always go to. I can go to Him for comfort and healing and just help, because I've needed a lot of it in the past year. But because I've needed help that only God can give, I've become so much closer to Him. Before the year started, I took everything for granted and just kind of ignored everything. But something happened that brought me closer to God, and now I wonder why I even tried to get along by myself. There's a greater comfort knowing that I always have God to run to when something's wrong, and when it's late at night and no one's awake and I need someone, God is there. Now I thank God for everything, because without Him, I would have nothing. Through thick and thin, He has provided all of my needs and He's kept a roof over my head and clothes on my back when we could barely afford it.

So being a Christian. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and now I can call myself a Christian. To me, it means having a relationship with God and knowing He'll take care of me and comfort me and always be there for me, because He loves me, and His love is something more than I could even ask for. The last thought I have is on baptism. I never understood it, but I went to summer camp and they were the best five days that made my summer go from kinda boring to super amazing. I learned so much at camp, and it was amazing to have five days of nothing but worshiping God, learning more about Him, spending time with other high school seniors and making new friends from church. But one thing I learned about was baptism, and one of things we do through baptism is declare our faith in Jesus Christ, so I'm going to do just that on 9/15/13. 
I think it's about time too.