Can you be a born a Christian?

Firstly, what is a Christian? Someone who is a disciple of and follows Jesus. It doesn't matter if they don't use the title, "Christian", because the disciples were first called Christianos at Antioch. You can called yourself a follower of Jesus of Nazereth, a follower of the Messiah, a follower of the Way, etc. it means the same time.

If you follow Jesus, if means that Jesus is alive to you today, that He is real and living and speaks to you, that He delivers you and heals you and gives you new life, etc.

Can you be born a Christian? No. It is not like a religion or a way of life based on lifestyle of rules, it is simply obeying and following the living Messiah.

"Christianity", or discipleship, is all about choice. It cannot be forced on anybody. We cannot compel a person to follow Jesus - they have to meet Him and respond to His invitation.

Discipleship is not inherited. It can be taught, "discipled", but it is not an inherent state one inherits at birth. Belonging to a race, or having a father or mother who is a Christian does not make you a nothing. Nothing will make you a Christian except your own free choice to follow Jesus. 

Following Jesus is not about rules, steps or even a system. The world is crazy, and no system, even the best system delivered by God Himself on the Mount of Sinai, will not save us. Only Jesus can save us. Outward obedience cannot save us. Good deeds cannot save us, because good deeds will never be good or perfect enough. We can't think in terms of a formula when it comes to discipleship.

Except that a man be born again, He cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That is something Jesus told Nicodemus, that is recorded in the third chapter of the gospel of John.

We are born unsaved. We born in need of salvation. Rather than being born Christians, it is quite the opposite. We are born apart from God, alienated from Him because we are Flesh and He is Spirit. That is why He came in the flesh, that we might be born in the Spirit, that we might have a new birth and be "born again".

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (Joh 3:5-6 KJV)

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
(Joh 1:11-14 KJV)



The way of salvation is open to all, to anyone regardless of birth or deeds. It is without discrimination, but, it is for us to choose it or reject it. To choose it, and few will choose this narrow (literally troublesome) course, is to choose eternal life. To reject it is to reject the one chance God gives to escape our certain fate of destruction and doom.

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
(Joh 3:36 KJV)


And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved.
 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
(Joh 3:14-21 KJV)