Russel Brand recently converted to Christianity, placing his faith in Jesus Christ. A few weeks ago, Brand was baptized, marking his commitment to Christ as his one and only savior. The famous actor took to social media to give an update on his life-changing decision to follow Jesus.
“I’ve been a Christian a month now and it’s been a big change,” he said. “Not that I’ve entirely changed as a person, of course I haven’t, but I’ve taken on a lot of new concepts and it changes you to accept that it’s not like you’re in a game show and by doing really, really good things, you can get redeemed.”
Brand touched on the concept of repentance, a true confession of one’s sin to Christ and a determination to walk away from it and not turn back. He explained how he completely surrendered his life to Jesus, seeking salvation through the grace of the Holy Spirit and not his own works.
“No, repentance, to repent, means that you have to continually change and acknowledge that I am in a battle against myself,” he stated. “That I need to surrender myself to an ever-present eternal and accessible Jesus. That mercy is something that’s given to me, been granted to me, that I live with through love, not something that I can sort of win or achieve by doing good deeds.”
Furthermore, Brand illustrates one of the key facets of Christianity: that God will guide your steps when you submit yourself to His divine will. The actor-turned-YouTube personality described how there is an “inner illumination” guiding his actions.
“When I’m in doubt, I feel the instruction is there, accessible, and I feel like I know what I am supposed to do and when I don’t do what I am supposed to do, that is even clearer,” he added. “When I feel myself being selfish or inconsiderate or putting myself first or not thinking about how I can be better to other people, it is as if there is an inner illumination available to me now.”
One of the most unique aspects of Christianity that separates it from many other world religions is that God became human and endured a painful death so that we may be forgiven for our broken, sinful nature. Brand notes how powerful it is that we have access to God through prayer and communion.
“I love the simplicity of the idea of God coming to Earth as a man to experience what it is to be human and to sacrifice himself because that is the only sacrifice that could bring us home, that could give us the opportunity for redemption,” Brand said. “I like the idea, when I am in prayer and in communion just alone, that there is a figure available, wounded and coronated, available to me. In my failings, in my failures, and in my fallibility, there is strength to be broken. Not just broken by life in the sense of life is rearing and exhausting, but to be broken in the same way that you have to train an animal to behave itself, to be broken into better conduct. It is a beautiful journey to go on.” Watch his video update below:
Featured image credit: Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Russell_Brand_(5622506846).jpg