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Basics of Faith V - How to learn more? ...

Friday, July 17, 2009. How do I learn more about the basics of faith? What are the important steps to do now? What do you recommend? When I start my path with Jesus, when I say: “My God, my Lord! I believe in you, I want to live with you”, what is next?

Jesus told his disciples some steps when he was sending them to their universal mission (Matthew 28, 19-20): “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you;[…]“. So baptism should be a topic to address after coming to faith. Today, there are many possibilities to be baptized - churches usually have baptism services several times each year. Often, baptism is backed up by some courses and teaching, to make sure that people who are baptized understand what they are doing.

Jesus says that we should follow his commands. That is an important point. Clearly, we want to live with him and do, what he says. But we also need to keep in mind that faith is not a set of rules. He wants our love and sincere obedience more than superficial sacrifice. He wants to change our existence into something driven by the Holy Spirit. We have started an adventure which is greater and deeper than any other adventure on this planet.

It is very important to live faith together with other Christians. You cannot be healthy in your spiritual life without being with others. You need correction. You need others to help you with their gifts and talents. And you need a place to serve yourself, you need to put your gifts and talents into action. There is no faith without the church. Thus is is important to join a church. Look around a little bit, there are so many different churches with different emphasis on parts of the gospel. Different countries have different church structures, reaching from orthodox via roman catholic to many evangelical and free churches. Try to find a church where people take faith serious, there might be churches where faith has decayed into pure ritual - that will turn out to be a dead end without leading to any maturity of belief.

The most important thing is: put faith into action with patience. There will be challenges and disappointment. God is not a machine and he tries to teach us important and deep lessons. But he is there, and he listens to us, even if we need to wait very long for some of our prayers to be answered. Take time for prayer every day. Put your faith into action every day. Obey when you realize that Jesus gave commands which concern your personal situation. Draw from his hope, his truth, his love, his commitment, his value, his creativity, his forgiveness, his mercy, his joy. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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