{"id":107464,"date":"2026-09-09T11:08:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=107464"},"modified":"2026-09-09T11:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:08:58","slug":"how-to-give-your-life-to-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/how-to-give-your-life-to-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Give Your Life to Christ: He Already Gave His First"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>9 Minute, 41 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Nobody in the four Gospels is ever told to give their life to Christ.<\/p>\n\n

The sentence is not in there. What is in there — twice, once in Matthew and once in Mark — is the phrase give his life<\/em>, and both times the one doing the giving is Jesus.<\/p>\n\n

“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” — Matthew 20:28<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Mark 10:45 repeats it almost word for word. Those two verses are the only places in all four Gospels where anybody gives a life, and it is never the person walking toward him.<\/p>\n\n

So if you have been circling the question of how to give your life to Christ — bracing slightly, half-wondering whether what you have to hand over is even worth handing over — the transaction you are dreading already ran once, in the other direction. What is left for you is smaller, and far more answerable. It took Jesus two words to ask it, and the people who said yes did not answer with words at all.<\/p>\n\n

Show Me Day 1<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n

The invitation was two words long<\/h2>\n\n

Go through the Gospels looking for the moments where somebody’s life changes direction, and you keep hitting the same short line.<\/p>\n\n

To a tax collector sitting at his booth: “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9). To Levi, at another booth: “Follow me” (Luke 5:27). To Philip, on the road out into Galilee: “Follow me” (John 1:43).<\/p>\n\n

That is the whole ask. No creed to repeat back. No formula. No wording to get right while your heart is pounding. And notice what kind of sentence it is. Not hand me your life<\/em>, which is something you either do correctly or fail at, but come this way<\/em>, which is something you start. One is a transfer. The other is a direction. Almost everything that makes this question frightening comes from confusing the two.<\/p>\n\n

Every recorded yes was something a body did<\/h2>\n\n

Here is the detail that is easy to read straight past. In each of those scenes, the response is not a sentence. It is a movement.<\/p>\n\n

Matthew was sitting down: “And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9). Levi was sitting too: “And he left all, rose up, and followed him” (Luke 5:28). Zacchaeus was up a tree, and when Jesus called him by name, “he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully” (Luke 19:6).<\/p>\n\n

Arose. Rose up. Came down. The Gospel writers record what these people’s legs did. Not one of them is quoted praying a prayer. Not one of them is described as getting the words right.<\/p>\n\n

So if some part of you is worried you already fumbled it — that your prayer was too short, too plain, too tearful, or that you are not certain you meant it hard enough — the record is on your side. There is no perfect version of that prayer waiting to be got right<\/a>. There is a direction, and whether you have started walking in it.<\/p>\n\n

What Levi did the very next thing<\/h2>\n\n

Now the part almost nobody mentions.<\/p>\n\n

You would expect Luke’s next line to be about everything Levi left behind. New man, new friends, clean slate. Instead:<\/p>\n\n

“And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.” — Luke 5:29<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

The first recorded act of Levi’s new life was throwing a party. In his own house. For his old crowd — the tax collectors and the “others,” the exact people whose company had been the whole problem. Matthew’s Gospel puts the same scene immediately after his own calling (Matthew 9:10). And we can tell it really landed that way, because the religious professionals watching were appalled enough to complain about it out loud: “Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?” (Luke 5:30).<\/p>\n\n

Read that as the answer to the fear sitting underneath the search. Most people asking how to give your life to Christ are quietly asking something harder: who do I have to stop being?<\/em> Levi did not get erased. He got a guest. The house was still his. The table was still his. The friends were still his — and now Jesus was sitting at it with them.<\/p>\n\n

But doesn’t Jesus ask for everything?<\/h2>\n\n

He does, and it is better to be straight about that than to soften it.<\/p>\n\n

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” — Matthew 16:24-25<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Notice the order, though. Deny, take up, follow — the cost sits inside the walk, not out in front of it as an entry fee you pay before you are allowed to start. And notice how the sentence ends. The one who loses a life finds<\/em> one. Jesus is not collecting lives for a shelf somewhere. He is describing what happens to a life that follows him: it turns out to be the one you were actually looking for.<\/p>\n\n

None of that has to be sorted out today. Nobody at those tax booths had it sorted. They stood up, and the rest arrived over years.<\/p>\n\n

So what does tomorrow morning look like?<\/h2>\n\n

This is where the honest answer stops being a moment and becomes a direction. Following is not something you complete on a Tuesday night. It is something you do again on Wednesday, in some small way, and then again on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n

Which is genuinely good news, because the small way is learnable — and the first month is the most commonly fumbled stretch of the whole thing. People open the Bible at page one with real intent, hit the genealogies, and go quiet by day four. The better move is to go straight to where those two words came from: walk through the life of Jesus itself, in order, one day at a time, until the person you agreed to follow becomes a person you actually know.<\/p>\n\n

That is precisely what 30 Days Walking with Jesus<\/strong> was built to do. Thirty days through the Gospels for somebody starting from nothing, with the deciding already done for you: a short devotional video each day of under a minute, a full-chapter audio reading for the mornings when reading is too much, a PDF study guide of journal prompts so what you read has somewhere to land, and five quick-reference scripture guides for when you need a verse fast. Under ten minutes a day. And it ends — thirty days, and you will have finished something.<\/p>\n\n

It is free. Not free-for-now, not free-if-you-hand-over-a-card. Free, because the words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall. No payment, no card, no expiration, no upsell. Access is instant on any device, and it is yours to keep.<\/p>\n\n

For the wider view of these first weeks, here is what to do as a new Christian<\/a> once the decision is made, and the word most people skip<\/a> in the phrase “Lord and Savior.”<\/p>\n\n

Matthew stood up from a desk. Levi left a booth and threw a dinner. Zacchaeus climbed down a tree and opened his accounts the same day. Not one of them knew what he was doing. All of them knew which way to walk. Thirty mornings is a good way to find out.<\/p>\n\n

Begin Your 30 Days Walking with Jesus<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n

Questions People Are Asking<\/h2>\n\n

Q: How do I give my life to Christ if I don’t know the right words?<\/strong>
A: In the Gospels, nobody is recorded saying any particular words. When Jesus said “Follow me” to a tax collector named Matthew, the only response the text preserves is “And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9). The same thing happens with Levi in Luke 5:28. There is no script, no formula and no required phrasing anywhere in those scenes. Say it plainly in your own words — that you believe Jesus is who he said he is, that you want to follow him, and that you are asking for help doing it — and then start walking in that direction tomorrow, which is the part the Gospels actually describe.<\/p>\n\n

Q: Is there a specific prayer I have to pray?<\/strong>
A: The New Testament describes confession and belief rather than a set prayer: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). That names what is happening — an honest out-loud yes and a real inward trust — but it does not hand you a script, and no prayer in the Bible is labelled as the one required for salvation. A short, awkward, true prayer is not a lesser prayer.<\/p>\n\n

Q: What do I have to give up to follow Jesus?<\/strong>
A: Less than most people fear on the first day, and more than a list can capture over a lifetime. The first thing Levi is recorded doing after following Jesus was throwing a large dinner at his own house for his old colleagues, with Jesus at the table (Luke 5:29). He was not erased. At the same time Jesus was honest that the walk costs something: “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). That cost shows up inside the following, over time, as trust grows — not as a fee paid at the door before you are allowed in.<\/p>\n\n

Q: How do I know whether it worked?<\/strong>
A: The Gospels answer that with direction rather than with feeling. Zacchaeus climbed down out of a tree, welcomed Jesus into his house, and told him on the spot that he was giving half his goods to the poor (Luke 19:8) — and Jesus said, “This day is salvation come to this house” (Luke 19:9). Feelings on the day itself vary enormously; some people weep and some feel nothing at all, and neither is a verdict. What tends to show over the following weeks is a changed direction: you keep coming back, you want to know Jesus more than you did, and small things start to move.<\/p>\n\n

Q: What should I actually do in the first week?<\/strong>
A: Read about the person you have decided to follow, in small daily pieces, rather than starting at Genesis and stalling in the genealogies. A short passage from one of the Gospels each day, somewhere you will genuinely sit down, plus one honest sentence of prayer, is more than enough for a first week. The free 30 Days Walking with Jesus plan is built for exactly this: thirty days through the Gospels in under ten minutes a day, with 30 short devotional videos of under a minute each, 30 full-chapter audio readings, a PDF study guide with journal prompts and five quick-reference scripture guides. No payment and no card required, access is instant on any device, and it is yours to keep.<\/p>

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How to give your life to Christ: in the four Gospels the words “give his life” appear twice, and both times Jesus is the one giving. What he asked took two words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[726,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-30-days-with-jesus","category-what-jesus-teaches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107466,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107464\/revisions\/107466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}