The common Christian pathway
Following is a description of the normal Christ-led pathway as described in the gospels and the Book of Acts (study at least the Gospel of John and Acts chapters 1 to 20). As you read this article, prayerfully consider what stage you’re currently at and then be open to God’s hand upon your life to help you grow. This is to be the key takeway: God your Creator loves you (even though He doesn’t always love what you do, say, etc.), He knows you intimately including what’s best for you, and His desire is for you to find and cultivate relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ:
1) You sense the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) moving about you, breaking you down and drawing you into relationship with your Creator (John 6:44). You can't necessarily articulate what is happening to you, but you no longer find fulfillment in the things you used to pursue and care about.
2) You become increasingly sensitive to sin with a longing to be set free from its hold upon you, although you might not exactly recognize it as sin. Maybe all you know is that you don't like yourself and/or this world as much anymore, and you're growing more and more thirsty for that which is "good" (Romans 3:23, 1 Timothy 1:15).
3) Through hearing, seeing, reading, and/or experiencing, you find Jesus as the only One who can save you from the path you're currently on (Luke 4:18-19, John 14:6, Acts 4:12). You might not know a lot about Jesus at this point, but you now believe He is the missing thing you've been looking for, and you start to seek Him out. Jesus has been there all along, it's just that now you're ready for what He has to say to you.
4) You demonstrate your repentance and desire to follow Jesus' life-giving ways by being buried in waters of baptism (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3-4, Colossians 2:12-14). You might sense a burden lifted at this point as your sins are washed away (Acts 22:16). You might experience a feeling of freedom and "cleanness." Perhaps together with these, though, you might also sense the seriousness of the commitment you have now made to your Savior (John 14:15, Matthew 7:21-23, Luke 6:46, James 1:22). If you're true to your declaration of loyalty to Jesus, you will seek to grow in your relationship with Him from this point forward.
5) Jesus does not leave you to live a life in Him by your own strength. He promised to empower all believers with the Holy Spirit (John 7:37, John 16:7 & 14:26, Acts 2:37-40, Acts 19:2-6). That is, when you fully surrender to Jesus and empty yourself of "self," you become full of God within. This includes being equipped with all of the supernatural abilities of the Holy Spirit, including the ability to pray in a spiritual prayer language, which is the Holy Spirit praying through you as part of the temple of God on Earth (1 Corinthians 14:2, 1 Corinthians 14:14-15, Jude 1:20-21). Some people receive this promised gift of the Holy Spirit before they are water baptized, like Cornelius and his household in Acts chapter 10. Either way, when Jesus baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, this life-changing power miraculously impacts your life as spoken about in Matthew 3:11, Mark 16:15-20, Acts 1:4-8, and many other verses in the Bible.
6) While you follow (or should follow) God's instructions to partake in public fellowship gatherings in a Biblically-orderly way (1 Corinthians 14:40), the more you personally pray in the Spirit (called "speaking in tongues") in daily communication with God, the more you build your relationship with Him (Jude 1:20-21, 1 Corinthians 14:4 & 18). Overall, the more you praise and worship, choosing thanksgiving and gratitude together with trust in and obedience to Jesus, the spiritually stronger you become (Ephesians 6:10-18). You feel like a solider of Christ fighting the spiritual battle of good over evil, and you're on the winning side. In fact, you know that Jesus' victory has already been established, it's just that it's now being played out, and continued prayer in faith is His people's most effective weapon!
7) As you continue to depend on Jesus and His light, love, wisdom, and truth, you learn how to effectively operate ("walk in the Spirit of Jesus") as a Christian (Colossians 2:6-7). Your old person and ways are overwritten, especially as you learn to care about other people's souls over your own life and choose to walk in the self-sacrificial love of Jesus. At no one point do you stop on the pathway to fully claim your salvation (1 Corinthians 10:12), just as the Apostle Paul said, "I count not myself to have apprehended..." (Philippians 3:7-14). Rather, you purpose to pursue a Godly life full of Christ-like character, fighting the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:11-12), meaning faithfulness “to” and not just “in” Jesus – and you encourage others to do likewise. The bottom line is that you continue to follow Jesus not because you feel obligated to, but because He is life unto you (John 6:63) – now and when your time on Earth comes to an end, and because He can be life unto all others who are lost as you once were.
