New Believers

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StartWhat believing the gospel meansStart

New life

  1. What believing the gospel means The gospel is the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Believing it is not a feeling or a way of earning anything: it is receiving Christ as he is offered in the gospel, and resting on him alone.
  2. Assurance of salvation Assurance of salvation rests not on how you feel but on what Christ has done and on God's sure promise. The Holy Spirit testifies that we are God's children, and doubt does not mean that faith has gone.
  3. Sin, repentance, forgiveness Believers still sin. Then we neither hide it nor try to pay for it ourselves: we confess it to God and turn back to him. Those God has forgiven in Christ learn to forgive others.
  4. What the Holy Spirit does The Holy Spirit is not a vague force but God, worshipped together with the Father and the Son. He gives us new birth, joins us to Christ, lives in us, helps us pray and grows his fruit in us.

Walking with God

  1. Starting to read the Bible The Bible is God's word, given to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ. You can begin with one Gospel, at a set time each day, reading with prayer and with others.
  2. Learning to pray Prayer is speaking with God as our Father, through Jesus Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught his disciples a prayer, and with it anyone can learn to pray, a little more each day.
  3. Worship and the Lord's Day Christians gather on the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose, to worship God. In worship God calls us by his Word and we answer with praise and prayer; the Lord's Day is a gift of rest and grace, not a burden.
  4. Through temptation and trouble Christians meet two kinds of trial: temptation, which pulls us towards sin, and trouble, which shakes our lives. God provides a way out of temptation, holds us with a Father's hand in trouble, and does not give up on his children when they fall.

With the church

  1. Belonging to a church The church is not a building but the people Christ has called together, his body. Those who believe in him belong to a local church, where they hear God's Word together, care for one another and grow in faith.
  2. Baptism Baptism, which Christ commanded, is a washing with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that marks a person as Christ's. The Westminster Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism teach it as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace; churches, the Reformed among them, differ over whom to baptise and how.
  3. The Lord's Supper The Lord's Supper is the meal Jesus gave his church on the night he was betrayed, to remember his death and proclaim it until he comes. Churches differ on how Christ is present; the Reformed confessions teach that believers truly feed on Christ by faith, through the Holy Spirit.
  4. Sharing the gospel Everyone who believes in Christ becomes his witness. Sharing the gospel is not a technique for pressing people, but telling honestly and kindly of the Christ you have met; it is God who brings people to faith.