My Baptist preacher’s kid upbringing taught me the process to becoming a Christian is to walk up an aisle in front of a church, say a prayer with the guy in front of the church, and get dunked in a pool of water. It was much later in my life that I discovered that this process, though it is not wrong, it is not all of the story and also not a set-in-stone procedure. My point is that it is a cultural tradition more than a universal requirement for salvation and is not the whole story.
So what is the requirement for salvation as lined out by the Bible? What steps must be followed? After searching, it appears that the only qualifier is belief. How easy is that? And if all we have to do is believe, why aren’t more people professed Christians? If it is so easy to become a follower of Christ, why aren’t more people following him? What is the big barrier? In my more recent life experience, I realized that the hardest thing about becoming a believer is what precedes belief in Christ. It is a posture of the heart that must happen first. This blog is my attempt to describe it.
This posture of the heart is described in the Bible as acknowledgment that I am a sinner just like everyone else. “Sinner” is a heavy word and we are hesitant to take it on as a label. It’s hard to admit that my sins are no less than the sins of any other person on this planet. It is seeing myself as much in need of redemption as a bigot, or a liar or even a politician. It is difficult to profess that the guy to my right and the guy to my left are no better or no worse than me. Internalizing that I am the same as everyone else, no better than my worst enemy, is a huge ask! It is declaring to God that the struggle is more than I can handle on my own. In a nutshell, this little barrier to belief is called humility.
You might be wondering if this humble pathway to belief is recorded in the Bible anywhere. I am a digital queen so my Bible is digital as well. It enables me to quickly find information that I seek in any translation. After a search, I found references to humility multiple times throughout the Old and New Testament in every translation from King James to the Amplified version. It would be hard to miss humility while reading through the Bible! It would be hard for this little term to be glossed over by culture. But somehow, I never made the connection until I was much older.
More than all these recorded Biblical instructions to humble ourselves, the Bible shows us the importance of humility with many stories. Jacob’s struggle with an angel, Sampson’s lack of humility right up until his humbling end and Joseph donning his flashy coat to end up touring of the bottom of a cistern are just a few that come to mind. But the most crystal clear Bible story highlighting the attitude of the heart is of the criminals dying on the cross to Jesus’ left and right as described in the book of Luke.
One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself-and us, too, while you’re at it!” But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Luke 23:39-43 NLT
This contrast of pride and humility can’t be overlooked and it can’t be minimized! Humility of the heart is required by God.