I used to believe in only one conversion. I don’t anymore. I now believe that there’s at least three. Let me explain.
The first conversion is what I’ll affectionally call the “Deep South” conversion. Sooner or later we all experience it. On day, we wake up & realize that we’re very, very naughty. We’ve done all kinds of things like turned our backs on our family & friends. We’ve realized that we’ve hurt others.
So, we convert. We convert to moralism; to “doing good.” The extremists in this camp are the fundamentalists that walk around like they’ve “figured it all out.” Of course, most of us are not that extreme. When you & I convert to this belief system, we “wrestle our sin to the mat,” “pull ourselves up from our bootstraps” and “wise up!” We see the world through a lens of truth & cast our conservative vote. We settle into a “Christian” ghetto & volunteer at church.
The second conversion is what I’ll laughingly call the “West Coast” conversion. Just about all of us do this as well. This conversion comes when we’re so exhausted from doing our duty & trying please others with our very best. But we end up making this change because it’s just not working & we cannot keep up appearances anymore.
So, we convert to relativism. The extremists in this camp rebel against authority, party hard & walk around like they’re the center of the universe. But these are just the extremists. More often than not this conversion says, “all of those moral religious folks are hypocritical!” (Of which, they’re right.) It also defines truth as being authentic about my junk to others, tolerating other people’s junk & yet loving them unconditionally. When we experience our “West Coast” conversion, we often avoid religious types, “live and let live” & help the needy.
Now before I move on to the third conversion, allow me to make a few observations on the first two: at first glance they appear to be polar opposites. The first emphasizes truth over love and the second emphasizes love over truth. But on the heart-level, they’re almost identical. They both are merely an outward change; worldly drugs that deceitfully promise survival & success through the behavior. In a word, both are an attempt to save oneself. And although there may be an outward conversion of the behavior, inwardly there is no conversion of the heart.
The third conversion is Christ’s. This conversion makes an impact because it originates in our
innermost parts and then spreads to our behavior. It is a conversion that involves a heart-level repentance that results from a realization that my efforts to save myself are fruitless. It’s an acknowledgment that my efforts to promote truth or to love well are merely the survival techniques that I erroneously use to justify my existence. And so this conversion humbly looks beyond ourselves to the work of Jesus Christ to justify, open our senses to God & empower us to live (both inwardly & outwardly) according to His truth & love.
My question for you today is:
Which conversion best describes you?
Don’t click away to the next page too quickly.
Think about it.
To reflect on this more, click here.
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