Freedom, love and peace

Why be a Christian?  The list of benefits is huge, so let me mention just a few.

Freedom.  Freedom from fear, from worry, from guilt (the Bible promises all of these).  Freedom to choose and enjoy (because God has given us the freedom to choose, and asks us to delight in his world).  Freedom to revel in God’s sunshine.

Doesn’t everyone have freedom?  Yes, we’re all free to choose how to live our lives.  But all of us have fear, worry and guilt that we can’t shift or escape by ourselves.  God offers to lift those from us, if we accept his gift and believe in him.

Love.  God’s love, poured into our hearts, to overflowing.  The only limit is how much we let him do that.  Unconditional love – whatever we’ve done, whatever we haven’t done that we should have.  Very humbling therefore.

Again, everyone can love and can be filled with love.  What happens when you become a Christian is that you get to meet, and know, the person who created love.  The source of all love.  It’s a bit like being plugged into the mains, with just our in-built resistance limiting what his love can do.  He helps us to get rid of our resistance, as we warm up to him and travel life with him.

Peace.  Peace that passes all understanding.  Knowing that God created us, loves us, has rescued us, and has heaven waiting for us – all of that leads to deep peace.  Prayer leads to peace, as we place our problems, and the problems of the world, into God’s hands.  Obedience leads to peace: Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  In effect he says leave your worries with me: I’ve got them and you can trust me utterly.  Peace comes through trusting him.  He even gives us the faith, i.e. the trust, to do that with.  The Bible says we can ask him for that faith and he will give it to us.

For the non-Christian it may be frustrating to hear Christians talk of some kind of super-peace.  After all, many Christians aren’t very peaceful and many non-Christians are.  I think the answer to this is that the Christians are probably more peaceful than when they didn’t believe, and the non-Christians could add even greater peace to what they already have.

These benefits are life-changing blessings.  There are countless others.  All available to everyone.