Category: Conversion

Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3 NKJV).

The basic meaning of convert is the idea of turning. There is a “turning from” and a “turning to.”

Turning From

The first part of conversion is the turning from sin. E. Stanley Jones rightly defines conversion as “conversion from a self-centered person to a God-centered person.”

This turning from sin is called repentance, which is a change of heart. The word heart in the Bible is used for the will, the control center of your moral life. Repentance is a change from a will aiming to please self, to a will aiming to please God.

Turning To

The second part of conversion is turning to God and trusting Him to forgive and save you. Faith is not believing certain claims about God, rather it is about trusting a Person. Faith is “an inherent trust and enduring confidence in the power, wisdom and goodness of God” (Heb 11:3 AMP).

Turning to God involves a separation from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and a dedication to the Church, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus Christ. The sim of our life is now to love God first and foremost, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40).

Agape Love

The kind of love spoken of here is not a feeling, it’s an act of the will. It is the willing of the highest good of God first and foremost, and the willing of the highest good of others equally with our own highest good.

Selfishness

Selfishness is putting our interests above God’s and others. It is putting ourselves first and foremost. It is dethroning God as King of our lives and placing ourselves on the throne of our heart.

If “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10), and “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4), then selfishness is the essence of sin. Sin is not missing the mark, sin is a wrong aim. It is aiming to please self rather than God. It is the root of evil.

Flesh, Sin, and Sins

The flesh is the tendencies toward selfishness, sin is the aim to serve self, and sins are the selfish actions that result from this wrong aim. They are selfish thoughts, words, and deeds.

Testimony of the Church

“Sin is due to the abuse, not use, of free will. The abuse of free will occurs when we put our egocentric interests above the common interests.” – Thomas C. Oden

“The root of all sin is selfishness, separating first from God and then from man.” – Andrew Murray

“We hold the essential principle of sin to be selfishness.” – A. H. Strong

“We have also seen, that all sin is selfishness.” – Charles Finney

An atheist is someone who says there is no God. So let me ask you, do you know everything? If you’re honest you would say “no, I don’t know everything.” So what you don’t know might be God. So you can’t say there is no God.

So the truth is you don’t know for sure whether there is or isn’t a God. You may not believe in God, but that is just a belief, not a fact. I believe because I have experienced God. And a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

Which God?

But you probably have good reasons for doubting God’s existence. But then I would ask, which God don’t you believe in? I probably don’t believe in that God either.

I don’t believe God is just another being among other beings, but one that just happens to be Supreme. I believe God is the Ground of Being. God is Wholly Other, completely beyond all we can think or imagine. So whatever picture you have of God, that’s not the God I believe in.

The Universe

That there is a God becomes obvious when you think about it. The universe had a beginning, therefore it had to have a Beginner. The universe has design, so it has to have a Designer. The universe is in motion, all motion must have a Mover. Nothing moves itself. The Universe could not have come from nothing, because you get nothing from nothing.

Because we don’t even understand the nature of our own reality, I don’t think we can even begin to understand God. Our reality is not a thing, but an event. Nothing is permanent, all things change. All things are in flux.

God Does Not Exist

Our reality is a world of becoming, God’s reality is a reality of Being. God does not exist, He is Existence. And I use the pronoun “He” for a lack of a better one. God is not male.

Language is one of the problems, when we begin to talk about God. It’s hard to convey exactly what a Wholly Other would be like. We speak most accurately when we speak about what God isn’t.

Intuition

Because God is not a thing among things, but the very Being out of which things flow. You know that deep within. You have felt it occasionally when you are out in nature, or alone at night. There is Something More, you just don’t know what it is. But you know.

“They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused” (Romans 1:19-21 NLT).