Jesus said, “Light has come into the world, but
men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light
for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20).
Paul reminded the Ephesian Christians that
before they were converted they were dead in their sins and
transgressions (Eph. 2:1).
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there
is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away,
they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not
even one.”(Rom. 3:9-20).
Now consider these twin truths: We are in
desperate need of God’s grace; and yet God owes His grace to no one.
That’s the very nature of grace—it is not something owed. What God owes us
is justice for our sins.
And when God’s Spirit begins powerfully to call
us to turn from our sins, there is a great sense of conviction. We begin
to sense something of the seriousness of sin.
You begin to feel like the psalmist who prayed,
“Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge”
(Psalm 51:4).
God has made us all, each and every one, with a
capacity to know, love, and serve Him; and the Bible teaches that we
should admit that we are on a course away from God, and that we should
change that course in order to return to Him.
The real change that we need is this conversion
from worshiping ourselves to worshiping God, from being guilty in
ourselves before God to being forgiven in Christ.
Many say that this change, or conversion, is
merely a mental acceptance. We simply need to make a decision, walk down
an aisle, fill out a card, pray a prayer.
But the Bible says the great change that we need
involves much more: It involves a turning from our sins and a turning to
God. It involves repenting of our sins and following God. Conversion
includes both the change of the heart toward God that is repentance, and
the belief and trust in Christ and His Word that is faith
Our only hope comes in understanding that God has
taken on flesh in Christ, that Christ lived a perfect life and died on the
Cross in the place of all those who would ever turn and trust in Him, and
that He rose in victory over our sins and now offers to pour out His Holy
Spirit into our hearts. Beginning to have this reliance, this trust in God
alone, is the nature of the great change that takes place in conversion.
But the Bible also teaches that we will not begin
making these right choices if God does not first change our heart.
Paul quotes Joel 2:32 in Romans 10,“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…” (but read the
rest of verse 32 in Joel 2) “even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”
Who calls on the name of the Lord? Those whom the
Lord calls!
Ephesians 2 is a
particularly important passage about conversion. According to the Bible,
repentance is a gift of God and faith is a gift of God, given not because
of our merit but because of Christ’s merit. If you would have the gifts of
repentance and faith, simply turn from your sins and turn to God in
Christ.
We are called to tell people that they must turn
to God. But we must understand that in doing this God is calling us to
talk to a bunch of corpses! That is how the Bible describes our natural
state: We are spiritually dead, as we saw in Ephesians 2. So
how can those who are spiritually dead ever turn to God in faith? They can
do so only if God gives them life. And how does God give them life? We find
throughout both the Old and the New Testaments that God has chosen to give
life to the spiritually dead through our proclaiming His Word to them.
As Jesus explained to His disciples, “You did
not choose me, but I chose you... to go and bear fruit” (John 15:16).
Peter’s words at Pentecost: “The promise is for
you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord
our God will call” (Acts 2:39).
Lydia heard the Gospel, but in order to find
salvation she would need to respond. And of course she did, but how did
it happen? We are told that, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to
Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14).
If our conversion, our turning, is basically
understood to be something we do ourselves instead of being something God
does in us, then we misunderstand it. Conversion certainly includes our
own actions. We must make a sincere commitment.
According to the Bible, our repentance and faith
are gifts of God to us; our conversion, our great change, occurs only by
God’s grace.
We see that change is both needed and possible.
And the change that we need is a change from living guilt-incurring lives
of sin, to living forgiven lives of trust in Christ. To do this we must
repent of our sins and trust in Christ. And this can happen only by God’s
grace through the preaching of His Word.
And so, if God is calling you, yield to His call
today by trusting in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
