Why Should I Join Christ?

by Orlando Gonzalez
(Revised)

Alright, we’re going to look at things from a worldly person’s point of view, but before we can proceed, I would like to begin with this question: What exactly is a worldly person?

A worldly person is widely regarded in Christian circles as a non-Christian who (regardless of age, gender, ethnic background, nationality, class status, or level of expertise in a field) lives his life with no desire to know God or one who believes he does know God, but does not understand Him in reality. He is a person who has not followed God's commands and has gone through his journey here on Earth based on his personal understanding of what works and what doesn’t. In addition, he has learned to copy from other individuals to understand what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable in the society that he lives in.

It comes as no surprise that many worldly people have heard about certain parts of Christianity at some point in their lives (eg. the Bible, Jesus Christ, sin, etc.), but they decide to ignore these unusual and unique things in favor of continuing to live as they personally see fit.

Why is that? I mean, after all, for someone like me, when I first heard of things like “God”, “Satan”, “Heaven”, and “Hell”, it caught my attention because of how unique and puzzling they sounded. Yes, I did see these things depicted in media and heard people say these words, but no one bothered to properly explain what these things were. Thus, my curiosity led me to pursue the truth and eventually led me to Christ.

Well, not everyone has that natural urge or drive to put in the work to find the truth, and Satan takes massive advantage of this. He has craftily tricked many people -- countless souls -- into believing that religion is not as important as prior generations have proclaimed it to be. In some cases, he has managed to even convince them that religion is nothing but either a hoax, a scam, a method to produce mass mental hysteria, or a way to manipulate the masses for a religious leader’s own benefit. Those who believe in such things will use these reasons (and many more) to reject religion altogether and will come to the false and foolish conclusion that they can still be “good people” by doing what is deemed good by man’s standards, thereby spend a majority of their time focusing on worldly things. These can include their work, spending a lot of time with their family and friends, gaining more money, acquiring material wealth, gaining more status, or just on the sexual and recreational pleasures of this life. They may even go so far as to think and act like Heaven and Hell don’t even exist, and that God is nothing but a figment of men's imagination just to set an absurdly high and irrational moral standard to live by for the rest of your life. There’s simply little to no concern for their spiritual well-being. Their love for truth and righteousness is simply non-existent.

As a result of their foolishness, worldly people are highly unlikely to ever question the importance of Christianity, the afterlife, the conflict between righteousness and wickedness, the reasons why the world is the way it is right now, the functions of God, and much more. Of course, other factors do play into this, like having misunderstandings while reading the Bible or hearing a poorly taught sermon, which leads to false and rash conclusions by the person and then deciding to never touch religion again. There is also the fact that there are some who simply have never heard of anything Bible-related, and thus have no natural inclination to learn more about God. Countless people are like that. Nevertheless, by the end of the day, we can still pin the primary blame on Satan for making us exist in this awful situation in the first place.

So, where am I going with this?

I want first to make it clear how the Bible views worldly people, and why Christians have the desire to seek them out. We often refer to worldly people as “the lost” because they are souls who live in darkness (Luke 19:10), and darkness does not provide any sense of direction (Luke 1:79, John 8:12). Christians are commanded by God to seek out the lost and to bring them into the light. That is one of our most important objectives (Acts 26:18).

I want to make it crystal clear though that Christians don’t just come up with these things because we think we’re better than worldly people. No! That is not it. God knows mankind inside and out and knows that everyone (except children and infants) who has ever lived has sinned (Romans 3:23) and doesn’t have a chance to make it to Heaven without coming to the Father through Christ (John 14:6).

God seeks to save as many souls as He can (II Peter 3:9), but He also knows that mankind has free will, and no matter how many chances He gives to them to see and embrace the truth, they will still choose to focus on this world and ignore Him. However, God has made it clear that people who only call out for Him when they’re in trouble will not receive any aid, as Micah 3:2-5 puts it:

“You who hate good and love evil,
Who tear off their skin from them
And their flesh from their bones,
Who eat the flesh of my people,
Strip off their skin from them,
Smash their bones,
And chop them up as for the pot,
And as meat in a cauldron!”
Then they will cry out to the Lord,
But He will not answer them.
Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time
Because they have practiced evil deeds.”

Some worldly people will decide to put in the effort to inspect Christianity to see if it is the real deal. They may come to visit a sound congregation, talk with a coworker who's a Christian, or dive into a Christian website that has a plethora of religious material. If they stick to their investigation, a wave of questions will certainly arise which a Christian will have to answer (I Peter 3:15-16), but possibly the most important one would be: “Why should I convert to Christianity if I feel like my life is fine the way it is?”

This is an excellent question, and I would like to bring out a few reasons why you must make the switch, especially before it is too late.

To start:

This world has fallen into sin thanks to Satan and has been ruled by him behind the scenes since the dawn of mankind (John 14:30, II Corinthians 4:4). Despite the human race having existed for close to 6,000 years, it has never gotten really any better, as not only have countless people put themselves in constant conflict with each other, but also because many of them are in direct conflict with God due to their sins and false viewpoints of Him, of life, and of the world (I Corinthians 3:18-19).

As history has shown, no matter how much we may promote mental health, help the environment, protest against war, boost the economy, aid the poor, or restructure society with new laws and teachings, it will all be futile if God is left out of the equation (Romans 1:28-32). The world is constantly falling apart with new societies rising to take the place of old giants, and with young rookies taking the place of old veterans in many fields. This alone creates a recipe for new problems to arise and old problems to stick around. There is little hope of world peace because everyone has different ideas on what world peace even is and how to achieve it. So, why would you want to stick with a world that, after all this time, is still falling apart as we speak? Would you to be offered a gift to enter into a new world instead? One that exists outside this plane of reality? Where there is no sickness, no hunger, no pain, no sorrow, no loss, no loneliness, and even no evil (Revelation 21:4)?

When you are having a crisis for any reason or are having a multitude of problems that feel excruciatingly overwhelming, who can you trust and rely on? Sure, you may have a physical family and some close friends who might help you, but are they even Christians? Are they people who are highly wise, skillful, knowledgeable, and experienced with God's word and the many things that life has thrown at them? If not, then those people are not very likely to give you sound advice, or even totally commit themselves to helping you out in the long haul until you can get back onto your feet.

You might say, “Well, I know my family aren’t Christians, but they still believe in God, and they have wonderful personalities and have done many great things! I know they deeply care about me, and they’ve expressed their love and patience toward me many times in the past, so I can still rely on them for help!” Listen, if you have ever spent much time with a strong and sound local congregation, sooner or later, you will come to face the harsh reality that the very family and the friends whom you’ve known all of your life aren’t truly good people for you have witnessed, firsthand, a level of good that you have never seen before in your entire life. That is thanks to seeing Christians exemplifying the very character of Christ. The world may see certain worldly people as good based on what it deems as “good”, but to God, He sees the real good people, and they’re those who love His truth and His teachings more than anything else. The world cannot comprehend that level of goodness because it makes it look bad in comparison.

Imagine what life could be like if you had a terrible, unloving family or a bunch of troublemakers as so-called “friends”? Or imagine what things would be like if you had no family or friends at all! How bad do you think that would be? Quite tragic, agonizing, and depressing, right? The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. With Christianity, once you get baptized, you gain a spiritual family that has countless members who come from all walks of life; each who has his own viewpoint, his own personality, his own skill set, and his own experiences (I John 3:1-2, Ephesians 2:19-22). From what I’ve seen, these people will be more than happy to help you out when you need it and are more than willing to watch your back against imminent danger, both physically and spiritually.

There is this looming event that will bring about the end of not just the world, but also the universe. It is known as "Judgment Day” (Acts 17:31, Ecclesiastes 12:14, Hebrews 9:27). This grand and awesome event will bring all the members of humanity who have ever existed before the throne of God and be judged based on their words, thoughts, and deeds in the context of whether their heart was fully committed to God or not (Acts 17:30-31). Once the judgment is done, the evil are separated from the good and are cast down into the realm of Hell: a place that will deliver never-ending and unfathomable pain to those who failed to meet God’s standards (Matthew 13:47-51, Luke 3:17). This is a type of death on a spiritual level, and there is no hope of ever coming out (Revelation 21:8, Matthew 25:46). On the contrary, those who are deemed righteous by God will be granted new spiritual bodies and are rewarded eternal life and glory with Him in Heaven (II Corinthians 5:1-10).

There is a time limit to this, however. We know that Judgment Day will take place sometime in the future, but we don’t know when (Matthew 24:42). We do not know if it will happen at a predetermined time, or if God will see that there's no longer a point to wait to save more lost souls. What we do know is that those who are lost cannot waste time with postponing baptism. Baptism is what makes you a child of God and saves you, for it cleanses you of the sins that you have done in your past and renews you so that you may be able to enter Heaven (John 3:5, I John 1:7, Titus 3:5). It is so important that without it, you will have no chance of reaching Heaven and being with God. It’s the only way for you to convert to Christianity, and the step-by-step process of this is very simple: You must first hear the Word (Matthew 7:24-27), believe in the Word (John 3:15-16), realize that you are in sin (Acts 3:19), you repent of your sins (I John 1:9) and then confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior (Matthew 10:32-33). After that, you proceed to participate in a full-body immersion into any available water (Acts 8:36-39, Romans 6:3-5). Afterward, you will have washed away your sins (Acts 22:16), thrown away the old version of yourself, and put on a new self (Ephesians 4:22-24). I must also mention that you must now lead a faithful and righteous life until your death according to the New Law (also known as the New Testament) because even though you’ve obtained salvation, it can still be lost due to leaving the truth (Revelation 2:10).

So, it is that simple. Granted, you will not avoid hardship or pain in the future by doing this, but it’s much better than deciding to continue with your sins. After all, humans are not built to dwell in sin for long (Genesis 1:27). The longer you put aside the decision, the more you risk being placed with those who are deemed evil on Judgment Day. Your life is like a vapor (James 4:14). You could very well miss your chance and die within this hour, or Judgment Day might come instead, and you may be stuck having to explain to God why you postponed your baptism or decided not to do it at all. It sounds pretty frightening, don’t you think?

So, why wait? As a young man who left his old home in New Jersey to travel halfway across the United States to live in Nebraska to become a child of God, I invite you to attend a local Church of Christ and learn what you need to get done. I hope to see you on the other side.

I love you, and God loves you.