When Did You Become a Christian?

One of the most confusing times from my childhood was the day my parents told us that they had given their lives to Christ and become Christians. I was about ten years old at the time, and I had no idea what they meant. I was pretty sure we already were Christians. From my earliest memories, we went to church, and we were active in the church. Years before that, I remember explaining the way of salvation to my younger sisters when our grandpa died unexpectedly. I knew that to go to heaven, you had to put your faith in Jesus Christ.

What I came to learn later is that my parents were telling us that no longer was their faith in Jesus just going to be a part of their life, but Jesus Christ was now going to be the center of their lives and our life together as a family. This change modeled what the Lord had commanded the Israelites through Moses:

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
• Deuteronomy 6:6-7 •

If we are to effectively pass on the faith to the next generations, we, too, need to let Christ be the center of every part of our life together as a family. We need to model Christ when we get up, we need to model Christ in how we live our day-to-day lives, and we need to model Christ to our children when the day winds down each evening. We need to do more than teach them about Jesus, we need to teach them to be led (BeLED) by Jesus.

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