- by Carrie Shaw
- on March 22, 2026
Becoming a Christian
Deciding to become a Christian begins with believing the truths about Jesus – who he is and what he came for – but it goes beyond intellectual belief. It means choosing to surrender to his guidance and leadership, willingly placing ourselves under God’s appointed king.
Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. He becomes the first claimant on our affections, the driving force in our decisions, and the final judge of our soul (Matthew 28:18–20, Isaiah 9:6, Luke 1:33, Acts 10:36, 1 Corinthians 15:27, Colossians 1:27, Romans 8:10, Ephesians 3:16, Acts 10:42, John 5:22, 2 Timothy 4:8, James 1:21, 1 Peter 2:25).
Becoming a Christian is therefore a matter of the heart – a reorienting of our life and decisions in line with our allegiance to the King.
The People of the Kingdom
An intrinsic part of our identity as Christians is recognising that we have given our allegiance to the King and been transferred into his kingdom (Colossians 1:13). The advancement of this kingdom – day by day, in the lives of those who surrender to King Jesus – is demonstrated in a kingdom community we call the church. The church is the tangible evidence of the reality of God’s kingdom.
Church people are kingdom people, living together under King Jesus, with lives “literally connected to things before the creation of the world and extending far into eternity” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Yet for many Christians, the “kingdom of God” is understood only as a future event. Jesus’ words “the kingdom is near” (Luke 17:20–21) are interpreted to mean, “the kingdom is coming at some later time,” perhaps hundreds or thousands of years away. The kingdom is seen as a distant hope, realised only at Jesus’ return.
“Entrance” to it is viewed as believing in Jesus, being baptised, and living a moral life – what many describe as the whole gospel message.
In other words: “I am a sinner. I need saving. I believe Jesus came to save me. In Jesus, I am forgiven (I hope — one can never be too sure) and I hope to be in the kingdom someday, if all goes well.”
But the kingdom of God – the sovereignty and rule of God -has always existed and always will (Psalm 47:7, 1 Chronicles 29:11, Exodus 15:18, Psalm 103:19). It existed in the past, exists now, and will exist in the future. Our hope as Christians is not a distant expectation but a present reality, experienced as we yield to Jesus’ rule and live kingdom-shaped lives under his dominion.
Believing in Jesus and being baptised doesn’t merely grant forgiveness; by God’s grace we receive a new identity. Our small, individual stories become part of the much larger story God is telling. We become kingdom people now (Matthew 13:38, Philippians 3:20–21, Ephesians 2:19).
Five Things That Make a Kingdom
Kingdom = King + Rule + Realm + Law + Land
1. A kingdom has a King. The King is God. He has always ruled – first through theocracy, then monarchy, and now through Christocracy. The kingdom of God has passed through many phases, one of which was Israel’s monarchy. Much of the Old Testament tells this story (see “Jesus, King of the World”).
2. The King must rule. In Scripture, this rule is always redemptive first, governing second.
3. A kingdom needs a people. In the Old Testament, this was Israel. But Israel, like a tree, has deep roots and grafted branches – seen in the New Testament as the church, which does not replace Israel but expands it (Romans 11:1–28).
4. A kingdom must have a law. In Old Testament times, this was the Torah, the Law of Moses. When Jesus, God’s perfect King, came, he did not abolish the law but fulfilled it.
Through his life, death, and resurrection, a greater law came into being — the Law of Cruciformity: loving as Jesus loved. The entire law of the new covenant is summed up in “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40, CEB).
5. A kingdom must have land. Land is central in the Old Testament, and in the New we see the “tree of the kingdom” expanding to encompass the whole world (Matthew 13:31–32, Mark 4:3–32). Once found in places like Eden or Israel, the kingdom now takes root wherever the church – the community of kingdom people – exists.
Wherever kingdom people live, God reigns in Jesus. One day, this kingdom will fill the whole earth, and God’s glory will be seen in all things (Numbers 14:21, Habakkuk 2:14, Matthew 6:10, Revelation 21:1,4).
This reality – that church people are kingdom people – is one of the most exciting and empowering truths of Christian life. We live for the King!
So why don’t we talk more about kingdom living and the church as a kingdom community?
Soteriology: The Small-Story Gospel
Here’s one reason. For many Christians, “the good news of the kingdom of God” – which is precisely what Jesus preached – has been reduced to a system of personal salvation and sin management.
It has become a gospel of soteriology alone, disconnected from the bigger gospel of ecclesiology – theology about the nature and structure of the church.
When we are saved by Jesus, God brings us into family and community. The gospel is not just about personal salvation; it also includes the larger reality that Christian people, gathered together, are the church – and the church are kingdom people.
“The movement that has long called itself Evangelical is in fact better labelled Soterian. We have thought we were talking about the gospel when we were actually concentrating on salvation.” – Scot McKnight
When our gospel is small, our Christian life often follows suit. We repent, we are baptised… and then many wonder, “what now?” We focus on getting others saved but often don’t know what to do after that. Life becomes about sin management – ours and others’ – and Christianity can turn into works-based exhaustion, leading to burnout and disillusionment with church.
Sin is indeed a problem – it separates us from God and must be dealt with (Isaiah 59:2, Isaiah 53:6, Acts 3:19, Galatians 5:19–21, Romans 5:12–21, Hebrews 7:25).
But the gospel is first and foremost an announcement – a royal proclamation – 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘑𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦. That’s the good news.
Salvation flows from that reality. It’s how we receive the good news and step into it
The gospel itself is larger than our individual story; it’s the declaration that through Jesus, God’s reign is breaking into the world and setting all things right.
Our stories are woven into God’s larger kingdom story, where life is lived both personally and collectively as people of the kingdom – connected to eternity.
“We are invited into a story that is bigger than our culture, bigger than our imagination, and yet we get to experience it and tell it in our own moment and place.” — Rachel Held Evans
“The good news is as epic as it gets… It’s the biggest story and the smallest story all at once — the great quest for the One Ring and the quiet friendship of Frodo and Sam.” – Rachel Held Evans
When we become Christians, we become people of the kingdom, living in fellowship with others under the King. Church isn’t just an event we attend; it’s the visible reality of the kingdom – the fellowship of the King (1 John 1:3, Acts 2:42, 1 Corinthians 1:9).
A New Day in an Old Story
While our salvation is part of the gospel, the good news preached in the first century was rooted in a far older and larger story – the story of the long-promised King and Saviour of the world.
The power of Jesus’ sacrifice and the wonder of his resurrection form the foundation of our faith and hope, but the heart of the gospel is that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed King (2 Timothy 2:8).
Our forgiveness and redemption exist within that larger message: the rule and dominion of the King.
Recognising the gospel as “the good news of the kingdom of God” realigns our theology with the big story God is telling. You are part of something far greater than your personal salvation.
Scot McKnight argues that Western Christians often view the kingdom too individualistically. In Scripture, God’s kingdom is always defined by God’s people. You can’t be kingdom people without being church people. “There is no kingdom now outside the church,” McKnight says, “and no kingdom mission that is not church mission.” Kingdom living is the church being the church – a fellowship under King Jesus.
When Jesus preached the kingdom of God, he was proclaiming more than personal salvation. He was declaring a new day in an old story – the story of God the King, fulfilled in King Jesus.
The Significance of the Kingdom
“To grasp the significance of the message of the kingdom in the ministry of Jesus, we can also resort to a statistical analysis. The term basileia (kingdom) occurs 162 times in the New Testament and 121 of those are in the Synoptic Gospels where the preaching of Jesus is recorded. The formula “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven” occurs 104 times in the Gospels.
This message is not only the inaugural message of Jesus and the focus of His great Sermon on the Mount, it is his final message. “After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
The gospel of the kingdom includes the necessity of salvation since the very message begins with the call for repentance, but it goes beyond the call to salvation and includes the demand for kingdom-focused living. It insists that we are saved for a purpose.” – SBC Life
‘Kingdom redemption’ is God’s work through Jesus – by his cross and resurrection – unleashed to the needy. Any “redemptive” work that doesn’t deal with sin, isn’t rooted in the cross, and doesn’t recognise Jesus as the central agent of new creation is not kingdom redemption, even if it appears good.
The kingdom of God is more than social justice or personal salvation. It is God’s eternal promise to fill the earth with himself and rule justly in the hearts of humanity, bringing total reconciliation through Jesus (Ephesians 1:11–12, 1 Timothy 1:16–17, 2 Timothy 4:18, 1 Peter 4:11, Romans 11:36, Revelation 1:16).
And if we want to know how Jesus understands the collective Christian life – ‘church life’ – the place to begin is with what he called the kingdom of God.
When we think of the church – the one body of Christ, the community of believers, we need to understand how this connects in tangible, relatable ways to the ‘kingdom of God’ and how we see this illustrated in the people of the kingdom today.
A true and full telling of the gospel must include the reality of the church, not as individuals gathered together in a building but as a kingdom of people – priests, rulers and images bearers on behalf of the King – King Jesus.
“For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” – Colossians 1:13
