Find A Christian Man

Category: Learning About Jesus Christ

Learn who Jesus Christ is, why He came, what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, and what it means to receive and follow Him. These foundational teachings are designed to help you know Christ more deeply, understand the gospel, and build your life and faith upon Him.

  • What Did Jesus Accomplish?

    What Did Jesus Accomplish?

    When Jesus died on the cross, His death was not simply the tragic ending of His life on earth. He willingly gave His life for us. Jesus said in John 10:18 (NLT), “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.” Jesus knew why He had come and what He had come to do.Through His death, He accomplished something we could never have accomplished for ourselves. Sin had separated us from God, and we could not remove that separation by being good enough, doing enough good things, or trying harder. Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven and brought back into a relationship with God. This is what our Heavenly Father wanted. He loves us and wanted us to have a relationship with Him. And that relationship does not begin with how much we love God, but with how much He loves us.

    Jesus Paid the Price for Our Sin

    Sin has consequences, and the Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 (NLT), “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” We deserved the consequences of our sin, but Jesus took our place. He had never sinned, yet He willingly suffered and died for those of us who had. 1 Peter 2:24 (NLT) says, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.”

    Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we do not have to carry the guilt of our sin for the rest of our lives. When we put our faith in Jesus, trusting in His death and resurrection and what He accomplished for us, God forgives us. Our past does not have to keep us separated from Him. This doesn’t mean that our choices no longer matter or that we can deliberately continue living however we please. It means that Jesus paid a price we could never pay, and through Him we can be forgiven and given a new beginning.

    Jesus Made a Way for Us to Come Back to God

    One of the most important things Jesus accomplished was making a way for us to have a relationship with God. Romans 5:1 (NLT) says, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.” We don’t have to spend our lives wondering whether we can somehow become good enough for God to accept us. We come to Him through Jesus and place our faith in what Christ has already done for us.

    This changes more than where we will spend eternity. Through Jesus, we can know God now. We can pray and know that He hears us. We can learn His Word, receive His help, and begin living the life He created us to live. Jesus didn’t die simply so our sins could be erased from our record in heaven. He made it possible for us to come back home to God, to know Him, and live in relationship with Him.

    Jesus Rose From the Dead

    Jesus died and was buried, but He did not stay in that grave! On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.

    1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (NLT) says, “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.”

    Now, let that sink in for a moment.

    Jesus is alive!

    The resurrection is not simply what happened after Jesus died. It is at the very heart of what we believe as Christians. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but death did not have the final word. The grave could not hold Him! And because Jesus lives, our hope is not based on someone who simply lived a good life and died a long time ago. Our hope is in a risen Savior who is alive right now.

    We don’t serve a dead Savior. We serve a living Christ! And because He lives, we can have hope when life hurts, strength when we feel weak, forgiveness when we have failed, and the assurance that death is not the end for those who belong to Him.

    Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus rose—and Jesus is still alive!

    That is the good news of the Gospel.

    Because Jesus rose from the dead, death is not the end for those who belong to Him! Think about what that means. The grave does not get the final word. Jesus offers us new life now and eternal life with God.

    His death paid the price for our sins, but His resurrection showed us that sin and death had been defeated! Jesus accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves. He made a way for us to be forgiven, restored, and brought back into a right relationship with God.

    But here is where we have to slow down for a moment.

    Knowing what Jesus did for us is wonderful, but what do we do with it? What good is knowing that Jesus made a way if we never receive what He came to give us?

    Jesus has made the way for us to be saved. But we still have a response to make.

    So this brings us to another important question:

    How do we receive what Jesus has made possible for us?

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

    “What Did Jesus Accomplish?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    Receiving Jesus Christ is the beginning of a new life with Him. But what happens after we receive Him?

    This is where our walk with Jesus really begins. Jesus didn’t call us simply to believe in Him and then go right back to living life the way we always have. He called us to follow Him. In Matthew 16:24 (NLT), Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

    Now, let’s slow down and think about what Jesus was saying.

    When we decide to follow Jesus, we are making a decision to no longer make ourselves the center of our lives. We have to be willing to give up our own way when our way doesn’t agree with God’s way. That’s not always easy.

    There will be times when what we want is different from what God wants. There will be times when our feelings tell us one thing, our desires tell us another, and God’s Word tells us something completely different. Following Jesus means learning to say, “Lord, I want Your way more than I want my way.”

    That doesn’t mean we become perfect overnight. It doesn’t mean we never question, struggle, get frustrated, or make mistakes. We are learning. We are growing. We are being changed.

    But here’s the beautiful thing: our direction begins to change.

    Instead of asking only, “What do I want?” we begin asking, “What does God want?” Instead of automatically doing what feels right to us, we begin learning to seek God’s wisdom. Instead of allowing our feelings, desires, past experiences, or the culture around us to determine how we live, we begin allowing God’s Word to shape our choices.

    That’s what it means to follow Jesus.

    Jesus becomes more than someone we believe in. He becomes the One we are learning to build our lives around—the One we trust, obey, and follow in every part of our lives.

    And here’s something important: following Jesus is a journey.

    We don’t wake up one morning and suddenly have everything figured out. We learn to follow Him one step at a time. Sometimes we take a step forward. Sometimes we stumble. Sometimes we realize we’ve been trying to lead instead of follow, and we have to turn ourselves back toward Him. But we keep following.

    Because following Jesus isn’t about becoming perfect before we can belong to Him. It’s about belonging to Him and allowing Him to teach us how to live.

    Following Jesus Means Learning His Way

    Before we came to Christ, we were accustomed to making our own decisions about how we wanted to live. We had our own ideas about what was right, what was wrong, what would make us happy, and what we wanted for our lives. Following Jesus means we begin allowing His Word to teach us a different way. There will be times when what Jesus teaches agrees with what we already think, and there will be times when it doesn’t. That’s where following Him becomes real.

    Following Him means we don’t change His Word to agree with us. We allow His Word to change us.

    Jesus said in John 14:15 (NLT), “If you love me, obey my commandments.”

    Obedience isn’t how we earn Jesus’ love, and it isn’t how we earn salvation. Jesus doesn’t love us because we obey Him. We obey Him because we belong to Him and love Him.

    As we follow Jesus, we begin learning to trust that His way is better than ours—even when we don’t understand it, and even when His way isn’t the way we would have chosen.

    Sometimes obedience will be easy. There will be things God asks us to do that make perfect sense to us. But other times, obedience will stretch us.

    It may mean letting go of something we really want.

    It may mean forgiving someone we would rather stay angry with.

    It may mean changing a behavior we’ve become comfortable with.

    It may mean walking away from something we know isn’t good for us.

    It may mean saying no to ourselves when everything in us wants to say yes.

    And sometimes, it may simply mean trusting God when we don’t understand what He is doing.

    That’s part of following Jesus. We don’t obey only when His instructions make sense to us or when they fit what we already want to do. We are learning to trust the One who knows more than we do.

    Obedience is one of the ways our trust in Jesus becomes visible in the way we live.

    Following Jesus Means Staying Close to Him

    We cannot follow Jesus well while rarely spending time with Him. Jesus used a simple picture to help His disciples understand this. In John 15:5 (NLT), He said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” A branch cannot produce anything if it is disconnected from the vine. In the same way, we need Jesus every day.

    We stay close to Him by spending time in God’s Word, praying, listening for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, worshiping God, and learning to recognize His voice through Scripture. These things aren’t religious chores we check off a list so God will be pleased with us. They help us know Him better. As we spend time with Jesus, we begin to understand His heart, recognize what pleases Him, and notice areas of our lives that need to change.

    Following Jesus Means Allowing Him to Change Us

    Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean everything about us changes overnight. We bring years of habits, attitudes, fears, wounds, wrong thinking, selfishness, and ways of responding to life with us.

    Some things God may change quickly. Other things He will work on in us over time.

    Philippians 2:13 (NLT) says, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

    I love that this verse reminds us that God is working in us. We don’t have to change ourselves by our own strength. As we follow Jesus, He works in us, showing us what needs to change and giving us the desire and the strength to do what pleases Him.

    That’s why we shouldn’t become discouraged when our Heavenly Father begins showing us things about ourselves that need to change.

    Sometimes we may think, “Lord, I thought I was further along than this.”

    But seeing those things doesn’t necessarily mean we’re failing at following Jesus. Sometimes it means we’re finally close enough to Him to recognize what doesn’t look like Him.

    That’s growth.

    When God shows us something that needs to change, we don’t need to hide it, make excuses for it, or beat ourselves up over it. We bring it to God. We ask Him to help us. We obey what He shows us, and we keep growing.

    There may be things God has already changed in you that you don’t struggle with anymore. And there may be other things He is still working on.

    That’s okay. Keep following.

    Following Jesus is not about pretending we have everything together. It is about allowing Him to keep working in us, one area at a time, until our lives begin to look more and more like the One we are following.

    Following Jesus Is a Daily Decision

    There will be days when following Jesus feels wonderful and days when it costs us something. There will be prayers that are answered the way we hoped and others that aren’t. There will be seasons when we understand what God is doing and seasons when we don’t. Following Jesus means we continue trusting Him through all of it—not because life always turns out the way we want, but because we have learned that He is worthy of our trust.

    Jesus didn’t promise that following Him would always be easy. He promised something much better: He would be with us. We don’t have to figure out this new life by ourselves. The Holy Spirit helps us, God’s Word teaches us, and Jesus continues leading us as we learn to walk with Him.

    Receiving Jesus is where the relationship begins. Following Him is how we learn to live that relationship every day. We will stumble. We will still need forgiveness. We will have much to learn. But we keep coming back to Him, keep listening, keep obeying, and keep allowing Him to change us. That is what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

    “What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?

    What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?

    Jesus has made the way for us to be saved, but we still have a response to make. We can know who Jesus is, understand why He came, and even believe that He died and rose again, but knowing these things is not the same as personally putting our faith in Him. God does not force us to receive the salvation Jesus made possible. He invites us to come to Him, believe, turn away from our sin, and place our trust in Jesus Christ.

    Receiving Jesus Begins With Faith

    Romans 10:9 (NLT) says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Notice that this Scripture doesn’t simply tell us to believe that Jesus lived. Believing in Jesus means more than accepting that He was a real person who walked this earth. It means putting our trust in Him.

    We are trusting that Jesus is who He says He is. We are trusting that He really did die for our sins, that He really did rise from the dead, and that what He did for us is enough to make us right with God. And this is where we have to let go of something many of us have spent our lives trying to do: trying to make ourselves good enough for God.

    We cannot save ourselves by being good. We cannot earn salvation through good deeds. Going to church, serving others, giving money, knowing Scripture, or doing religious things cannot erase our sin and make us right with God. Salvation begins when we stop depending on ourselves and start depending on Jesus.

    It isn’t about what we can do for God. It’s about trusting what God has already done for us through Jesus Christ.

    Faith also means recognizing that we need to be saved. That can be difficult because most of us would rather think of ourselves as pretty good people. We may compare ourselves to people who have done things we consider the absolute worse and decide that we aren’t so bad. But salvation isn’t based on how we compare with other people. Romans 3:23 (NLT) tells us, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Every one of us needs the Savior, and receiving Jesus begins with admitting that we cannot save ourselves.

    We Turn From Sin and Turn Toward God

    The Bible also talks about repentance. That word can sound religious or complicated, but the basic meaning really isn’t difficult to understand. To repent means that something changes in the way we see our sin. We stop making excuses for it. We stop trying to convince ourselves that what God calls wrong isn’t really that bad. We stop defending what He tells us is wrong. Instead, we agree with Him about our sin and turn toward Him.

    That’s what repentance is. It’s a change of heart and mind that leads to a change in direction.

    Repentance doesn’t mean we suddenly become perfect. It means we stop running from God and start turning toward Him. We acknowledge that we have sinned, we agree with what God says about it, and we become willing to let Him change us.

    Acts 3:19 (NLT) says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”

    Notice those words: “repent…and turn to God.”

    God isn’t asking us to clean ourselves up before we come to Him. He is asking us to turn toward Him—to acknowledge our sin, trust Him to forgive us through Jesus Christ, and allow Him to begin changing us from the inside out.

    So we can be confident about something important: repentance does not mean we have to fix everything about ourselves before we can come to Jesus. That’s not what God is asking us to do. Think about it. If we could make ourselves right with God before coming to Him, we wouldn’t need a Savior in the first place.

    We come to Jesus as we are. We come with our sin, our struggles, our failures, and all the things in our lives that still need to change. But we come with a heart that is willing to turn away from living life our own way and begin learning to live God’s way.

    That doesn’t mean we will never struggle again. We will. It doesn’t mean we will get everything right. We won’t. We will still need God’s grace, God’s Word, and the Holy Spirit to help us change and grow.

    But something has changed inside of us.

    We no longer want a life that leaves God out of it.

    We Receive Jesus Christ

    John 1:12 (NLT) says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”

    Notice those words: “believed him and accepted him.”

    Receiving Jesus is personal. Salvation is not something we inherit from our family. We aren’t saved because our parents believed in Jesus. We aren’t saved simply because we grew up going to church, learned Bible stories as children, attended Sunday school, or were baptized when we were young. And we aren’t saved simply because we call ourselves Christians. Those things may be part of our lives. They may have introduced us to Jesus and helped us learn about Him. But there comes a point when we have to personally respond to what we have heard and learned about Jesus.

    Your mother can’t make that decision for you. Your father can’t make it for you. Your pastor can’t make it for you. Your church membership can’t make it for you.

    You have to receive Jesus for yourself.

    This doesn’t mean that salvation is something we accomplish on our own. Quite the opposite. Jesus has already done what we could never do for ourselves. He died for our sins, rose from the dead, and made a way for us to be reconciled to God. But we must personally respond to Him by believing in Him, trusting Him, and receiving what He has done for us.

    You can grow up surrounded by faith and still need to make your own decision about Jesus.

    You can know the Scriptures and still need to surrender your life to Him.

    You can sit in church every Sunday and still need to personally answer the question: “What am I going to do with Jesus?”

    Being around Christianity is not the same thing as belonging to Christ. At some point, faith has to become your faith. Your relationship with Jesus has to become your relationship with Him. And that is where receiving Jesus becomes personal. He has made the way. Now we have to respond.

    When we receive Jesus, we are receiving Him not only as the One who saves us from our sins, but as Lord of our lives. That means we are no longer saying, This is my life and I’ll decide how I want to live it. We are placing our lives into His hands and beginning to learn what it means to trust Him, obey Him, and follow Him. We won’t understand everything about following Jesus on the day we receive Him. We don’t have to. This is the beginning of a new life with Him.

    God Makes Us His Own

    Something wonderful happens when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. God forgives our sins and gives us new life. We are no longer separated from Him. We belong to Him. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

    That doesn’t mean we wake up the next morning with every problem gone, every bad habit broken, and every part of us completely changed. Receiving Jesus is the beginning, not the end, of what God wants to do in our lives. We begin learning His Word. We learn to pray. We learn to recognize what needs to change in us. And through the Holy Spirit, God begins helping us become more like Jesus.

    You do not have to become good enough before you come to Christ. You come because you recognize that you need Him. Jesus has already done what was necessary to make salvation possible. We receive that gift by placing our faith in Him, turning to God, and surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ. And once we have received Him, another part of the journey begins: learning what it means to follow Jesus every day.

    Continue Learning About Jesus Christ

    What Did Jesus Accomplish? | What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ? | What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus?

    Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

    “What Does It Mean to Receive Jesus Christ?”, written by Sokie for https://findchristianman.com Copyright©2026. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

  • Self-Worth

    Ephesians 2:8-10(NLT)
    8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

    1 John 3:16 (NLT)
    16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.

    Psalm 139:14 (NLT)
    14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

    1 Samuel 16:7 (NLT)
    7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

    Psalm 139:13-15 (NLT)
    13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
    14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
    15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

    Titus 3:5 (NLT)
    5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.

    Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)
    11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

    Luke 12:6-7 (NLT)
    6 “What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. 7 And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

    Colossians 3:12-14 (NLT)
    12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

    Matthew 7:7 (NLT)
    7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

    Mark 12:31 (NLT)
    31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

    Matthew 5:5-9 (NLT)
    5 God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.
    6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
    7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
    8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
    9 God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

    New Living Translation (NLT)
    Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.