Can you believe it? We have finally reached the end of the book :-)
It is possible though by no means certain that Christianity may be more plausible to you now that you've read this book. You may have been personally moved by some of the descriptions of our world's need, your own condition, and Christ's mission in the world. What if you are ready to explore that it means to put your faith in Christ? Where do you go from here?
Motivations are nearly always mixed. If you wait until your motives are pure and unselfish before you do something, you will wait forever. Nevertheless, it is important to ask what is primarily moving you toward an action, especially when it comes to faith commitment.
For example, you may be at a time of great difficulty and need. You are sharply conscious, maybe for the first time in your life, that you need God and some kind of spiritual help in order to make it. There's nothing mistaken about that, but it would be very easy in that condition to approach God as a means to an end. Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you?
We have to recognise that virtually all of us begin our journey towards God because we want something from him. However, we must come to grips with the fact that we owe him our entire lives just because of what he has done for us already. If Jesus' death for us was the only thing he ever did for us - and he has done and still does so much more - even then he would deserve our eternal gratitude.
Importantly we need to remember that becoming a Christian is not simply a matter of ticking off a list of things to believe and do. Behavioural changes alone will not make you a Christian. Lots of people in the world are socially and personally ethical but do not have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Repentance is not less than being sorry for individual sins, but it means much more.
The repentance that really changes your heart and your relationship with God begins when you recognise that your main sin, the sin under the rest of your sins, is your self-salvation project. As we have seen previously, humans have the tendency to create their own 'gods' even though we do not call them that.
Moreover, becoming a Christian always has both an individual and a corporate aspect. Being part of a community of believers is important. At this point it is vital to acknowledge that so many people's main problem with Christianity has far more to do with the church than with Jesus. They have had bad experiences with churches before. The church of Jesus Christ is a bit like an ocean, enormous and diverse. Like the ocean there are warm and clear spots and deadly cold spots. But there is no alternative. You cannot live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.
What if you have reached the end of this book and, as the result of reading it, you wish you could have faith but you don't? This questions is probably best answered by the following example. During a dark time in her life, a woman of a local church complained that she had prayed over and over "God, help me find you" but had got nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she might change her prayer to "God, come and find me! After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep." She concluded when she was recounting this to me, "The only reason I can tell you this story is - he did."
Based on: Tim Keller (2008), The Reason for God, p.213-226
