As a new Christian you can rejoice that there are many, too many to list here but just consider these benefits. First of all as Jesus described in the Gospel of St John chapter three, to be a Christian one has to have had a spiritual new birth. In our world today there are Professing Christians and there are Possessing Christians. Let me illustrate: Say a person is filling out a form that asks:
What is Your Religion?
1. Jewish
2. Catholic
3. Muslim
4. Hindu
5. Christian
America was founded on Christian beliefs though our country has strayed far from the Pilgrims who came to worship God Freely. So most living in these United States filling out such a form would say, Let see, of the 5, I identity as a Christian yet not having a conversion experience of Knowing who Christ is, God Incarnate and having accepted His atonement on the Cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Thus they are Professing Christians but not Possessing Born Again Christians or True Christians.
Our First benefit then, having received Christ by faith is: We have been adopted into the family of God and now we have a Heavenly Father and we are now in a new family.
We were born as sinners with a freewill and the day came when we passed from a state of innocence into the realm of being a sinner having sinned against God’s law. Jesus said of the Pharisees in John’s Gospel Chapter 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do.” Upon receiving Christ as our Lord and Savior the Believer has been adopted, and moved to a new residence as a Child of God. We have turned from the sins that bound us and are free from the penalty of sin, freed from the power of sin and yes freed from the guilt of sin.
Just think about that for a moment as to benefits. 1. We have been forgiven of our sins, past, present and future. Someone would say I understand God has forgiven me for my past sins but I am not sure about future sins. True, as a new person in Christ Jesus we do not want to sin any longer. However when our Lord died on the cross all of your and my sins were future as we had not been born yet. . We should be done with willful known sin by the power He has given us as a new family member. No Christian has to sin but we are still in the flesh until Jesus comes when we will then receive a new glorified sinless body. See our article entitled, What Do I Do If I Fail and Commit a Sin. God has a remedy for a believer who falls into sin. We are discussing Benefits Here. 2. We have been forgiven of the Guilt of our sin. No matter what the sin is, fornication, adultery, drugs, stealing, lieing, etc. all our sins were nailed to the cross and the Blood atonement that Jesus paid on the cross forgave us of all our sin. One no longer carries the burden of the guilt of sin, it has been paid for with the Blood of Christ on the Cross. 3. We have been given power to live the Christian life. Sometimes someone will say, “well I just don’t think I could live the Christian life.” If you feel this way you are correct. You can’t. As a new member of the family, God Himself will give you the power to live for Him. John 1:12 says, “But as many as have received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them who believe upon His name.” You are not expected to live it in your own strength, your new Heavenly Father will give you the power to live a life honorable to Him.
Another benefit of the Christian life is the brotherhood of the believer. I got saved when I was 21 years of age after being born and raised in a non gospel preaching church. I was running with three guys living in the lusts of the world. A few nights after I received the Lord our gang went to the bars as we were used to doing. However that night at the bar I was miserable. My new family nature was so out of place and I was very uncomfortable. On the way home I spoke up and said, “hey guys this will be my last night, I’m not going back anymore.” Surprised they said, “Oh what’s going on, are you gonna settle down and get married?” I said, “no I have found Jesus Christ as my Lord, He has forgiven me of my sins and I am going to live for Him.” As they dropped me off at my car I thought, gee I just gave up my best three friends. In the years that have followed little did I know then that God would give me literally hundreds of friends. Fellow believers whom I got to know on this journey that we travel in the Christian life. I have friends now in probably 20 states having met them as fellow believers along life’s pathway. If you get involved in serving the Lord through your local church, home Bible studies, group fellowships you will find that you will have a lot of new brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Certainly perhaps the biggest benefit given is that God has given the Believer eternal life, the forgiveness of all sin, adoption into the new family and the assurance that all believers will spend eternity with God in Heaven. Listen to what the Father has told his children (you and me the Believer) in John chapter 14:1-3 “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: If it were not so I would have told you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” The apostle Paul writing in chapter one of the book of Titus says that “ we have a hope (a sure thing in the greek) of eternal life, which God who cannot lie, promised even before the world began.” Or listen to what the Lord says in John chapter 10 “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.” It does not say that we will never die. Our ole house, this body grows old and tires as I am at 80 years of age. Death is the penalty for mans original sin. But the body which goes through death is just a house that our soul and spirit, the real you and me lives in. The Bible says that when a believer dies, he/she is absent from the body, the house, and present with the Lord. Christians living at the Lord’s return for His church, known as the rapture, will escape death but most of us will leave this world through death. But for the Christian, death is only graduation day, moving day, moving from this world of sin into the presence of our Heavenly Father. Unbelievers who reject the Lord here below and want nothing to do with the God who created them, will likewise be rejected for their refusing to receive the free gift of salvation that the Lord gives to all who will believe. Imagine anyone refusing to have their sins forgiven as a gift provided by our Lord on the Cross.
The New Birth of John chapter 3, once received by a seeking Believer is a life changing Event whereas we are a new creature in Christ Jesus. We read in 11 Corinthians chapter 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passing away, behold all things are become new.” Yes we are out of the old family in this world which is governed by Satan, the Devil and we have moved into a new family, adopted into the family of God. From the day we trusted Christ our lives began a change that continues as we walk with and get to know our new Heavenly Father. The things of the world become less appealing, we yearn to walk a life pleasing to God. We may stumble and perhaps fall at times like a young baby learning to walk, but we get up, confess our sin to the Lord and on we go. In the animal world we could like our old life as that of a pig wallowing in the ways of the world and now we are a sheep avoiding the hog mire. As a sheep we may slip and fall in the mire at times but we don’t live there like the sow. We have a new nature and it detests the pull of the world into the sins of those who live for the lusts of the flesh . There are so many more benefits that we have as Christians and I have only named a few.