I BELIEVE
My Journey to Truly Believe Budi Tjahjadi, member of the Evangelism Committee I grew up in the largest Muslim country in the world. According to the Joshua Project, evangelical Christians make up only 3.19% of the population of Indonesia. We are definitely a minority. I am a Chinese Indonesian, and we are usually culturally “Christian.” I grew up in a legalistic Presbyterian kind of a church that is very culturally legalistic. They promoted status symbols there. Many would try to do their best to do well, to improve their status, either by educational degrees, but then they would brag about it. They would tell others how successful their children are. Some of you might understand these circumstances better than others.
Cultural Christian Growing up in a culturally Christian family, where you are born into your religion, it is very much what it is–a religion–it’s not so much faith. It’s like having a Christian ID, since people usually have to put on their ID what their religion is. Many Indonesian Muslims and Christians, as a result, don’t exactly understand their religious beliefs. Many “Christians” don’t have true faith because of their religion. For instance, going to church is expected and many feel good because they went, not because of what they experienced there. So, when did I become a Christian? It depends on what you call a Christian. Most people just label themselves a Christian, or a Muslim, and so did I. However, in college, I came to the U.S and started reading the Bible, started attending Bible study with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on campus. Over the years, I committed my life to Christ many times. I was baptized first when I was 15 in Indonesia, after going through some formal 2-3 weeks confirmation classes. Then, I was baptized again in college. But truly, I didn’t know what baptism meant, even though I could say, “It’s to publicly declare that you are giving your life to Jesus Christ.” Yet, slowly and gradually, I realized that it’s not just about publicly declaring your faith. It’s about totally giving your life to your faith. My understanding of giving my life is gradually growing. Growing from just going to church and listening to the sermon, to then understanding the sermon, to reading my Bible, to leading Bible study, to living for God, to suffering for God. I am growing now so that everything I do is for God, and only for him, and finally being willing to conform to his death. I see
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now baptism means being baptized into his death, so I can be resurrected in his resurrection and get a new resurrected body like him, as Romans 6:3-5 says.
To Live Is Christ So, what does it mean to me now to be a Christian? It’s Philippians 1:21-22: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell.” (NKJV). If you believe that you are saved as a Christian, then why do you still continue to live? We should just die and be with Christ–you have all to gain, right? Why live in this wretched corrupted body? But we live because we can still produce fruitful labor. It’s the evidence of our salvation. Not to labor to earn your salvation, but to suffer for Christ, so that others can live also. The Apostle Paul told his readers not to turn away from their faith, because then he would lose his fruitful labor, the main reason he lived. Second Corinthians 4:7-12 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.” (NKJV)
