Listen to these amazing words of Jesus: “Except you are onverted, and become as little children. You shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.” Jesus demanded, conversion: This is perhaps why, one of the most asked questions is: “What do you mean, by conversion?” Men and women, young people, in every walk of life, ask this question.
The Bible teaches, that God is so Holy, and Righteous, that He cannot tolerate sin. And it tells us also, that we have been born in sin. Sin separates man from God. Now the question is, “How can they be brought together?” Who can bring sinful man, back into fellowship with a Holy God?
There is only one way back to God: And that is the way of the “Cross.” And at the Cross, is where “conversion” takes place. The word “conversion” means “to turn around” “to change ones mind” “to turn back” “to return. True conversion involves the total mind, the total affections, the total will. There are thousands of people who have been intellectually converted to Christ. They believe the Bible, they believe about Jesus, but they have never been converted “to Him!” Intellectual understanding is extremely important. It is essential to conversion: but conversion must go deeper, much, much deeper than intellectual understanding.
Genuine conversion, must also effect our “emotions.” Christ demands a change in the way “we live.” If our belief in Christ does not change the way we live, than we have every reason to doubt, the validity of our experience. Sure, conversion affects our intellect, but our emotions must also have a revolutionary change. The Bible says: “With the heart (that is with the seat of your emotions) man believes unto righteousness.” Genuine conversion is a thing of the heart and the soul as much as it is a thing of the mind.
But even if we have a intellectual acceptance of Christ, and our emotional experience, that still is not enough! There must be the conversion of our “will” there must be a determination to obey and follow Christ, Our will must be bent to the will of God. The main desire of our life becomes from now on, to please God. Conversion is not, is not, trying to live up to the Sermon on the Mount, “Conversion” is not trying to live up to the Ten Commandments, because the man o woman, is yet to be born, who has lived up to them. Only Christ has done this.
Conversion in the Biblical sense of the Word is letting Christ coming into your heart & life and changing it completely: Giving you a new nature, His nature. In Conversion, as you stand at the foot of the Cross, the Holy Spirit makes you realize, that you are a sinner. He directs your faith, to the Christ who died in your place. You open up your heart and let Him come in and the precise moment you do so, the Holy Spirit, performs the miracle of the new birth. You actually become a new moral creature. There and then God’s divine nature is planted in your heart. You become a partaker of God’s own life. Jesus Christ through the Spirit of God takes up residence in your heart.
The converted person will love many things; he once hated, and hate many things that he once loved. There will be a change of heart about God. Where you once, may have been careless about God; living in fear, dead and antagonism to God, you will find yourself in a state of reverence, confidence, obedience and devotion to Him.
Conversion means, a complete change in your life, and more important, your acceptance into the Kingdom of God.
Have you been converted? If not, make your decision to accept Christ today, right now, before it is eternally too late. Let us remember what Jesus said: “Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.”
He Is Only a Prayer Away.
Pastor Bob