Many people are immersed in church activities, but have never personally received Christ’s forgiveness and leadership. They have intellectually believed in Christ, but have not moved on to receive Him as their Lord and Saviour.

A spiritual equation that spells out what it means to become a Christian is found in St. John 1:12. The equation is : Believe + Receive = Become (Conceived). "But as many as receive Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,"

To believe is to consciously agree that Christ sacrificed Himself to pay for my sins. It is not just an intellectual choice alone. Some people sit in churches for years and are stuck on this point. Their spiritual birth never takes place and they become stagnant.

Receive is the action from the will that reaches for what Christ has done. We must move to this next step and receive God’s free gift of forgiveness. We must receive it for our ownselves, because until they do that, it’s not theirs. It must be more then something that we know in our heads. It must be accepting Christ’s payment on our behalf.

Next we become God’s new work. God’s transforming life then starts working in us. Ephesians 2:10 says that we become His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Being a Christian can appear to be an oxymoron. An oxymoron is a combination of words that seem to contradict each other. Some examples – jumbo shrimp, gourmet TV dinner, ill health, freezer burn, old news, pretty ugly and closet space. A saved sinner is such a term that appears to contradict itself.

A saved sinner may seem to be contradictory but it is not. Christians have been saved by God and not by their own efforts. Our Lord and Savior has paid the price for us. The world has leaders that are only concern about themselves, but we have a leader that is willing to die for us.

There’s a story about an Army sergeant and a private who were doing survival training in the mountains. As they made their way through the woods, suddenly they encountered a big angry grizzly bear that was about to attack them.

Quickly the sergeant sat down, ripped off his heavy hiking boots, took his running shoes out of his backpack, put them on, and was lacing them up in a hurry.

The private stood there watching. "Excuse me sir," he said. "Do you really think you’re going to be able to outrun that bear?" "Well, private, I don’t have to outrun the bear," replied the sergeant as he took off running. "I only have to outrun you."

The world offers us leaders who don’t really have our best interests at heart. Politicians who make all kinds of promises that fail us in the end. Bosses and managers whose only allegiance is to themselves. If the situation involves a loss or hurt between you or him, he’s going to save himself, just as the sergeant did.

The only way to determine whether your leader is really for you is he will suffer a loss or risk being hurt himself. Is he willing to take a bullet that was meant for you? It would be like the sergeant in the story saying, "Private, you run for safety; and I’ll stay here and take on this bear."

Jesus is our sacrificial leader that will never let us down. He said, "Greater love has no man than this, then he lay down his life for his friends." This is exactly what Jesus willingly did for us. He gave His life so that we might have his life which is eternal.