Conviction to Conversion
Comments(0) “You see the mistake of those sinners who fear to embrace religion, lest they should disgrace it, by living in sin, as they see many professing Christians now do.
Sinner, you need not stand back on this account. Only come out from under the law, and be truly converted–submit yourself to the power and influence of sovereign grace, and no form of sin shall have dominion over you, as God is true.” –Charles Finney, 1839.
It’s been a wild ride folks. Last Wednesday I was reading John Owen’s ‘The Mortification of Sin’ in our staff library at work. A member of another ministry, one of our missionary organizations walked over and asked me what I was reading, I told him about it and shared how I had been reading a lot of mission literature as well.
He saw my excitement and took me to meet another member of his ministry. Upon meeting me she suddenly grabbed a book from her shelf and said, ‘you have to attend this class!’ She told me about Perspectives. I was wary at first, mainly because of the money involved. I didn’t dismiss it altogether though.
That was Wednesday, the first class was Thursday evening. She said that I could attend the first two weeks for free if I had wanted, I thought about it. Then, as I returned to the office I remembered what I had been thinking about the night before.
I had been reading the book ‘The Promise of the Spirit’ a compilation of lectures by Charles Finney. In one of them he spoke about the duty of a Christian to love his neighbor, more concretely, to look out for his neighbor’s best interest.
Now I had given a guitar to a friend at church to use, we agreed on a price, he took the guitar to have it set-up and I never inquired when I should received the agreed upon amount. Upon reading Mr. Finney’s lecture on loving our neighbors, I was struck that I had not had my brother’s best interest in mind.
I knew what the guitar had cost me, and rightly picked a price that was reasonable, that is if I was in a business. I had considered that I could easily have asked for fifty dollars less at no detriment to myself.
As I sat down at my desk this all came back flooding into my head. I instantly called my brother and asked, ‘if I were to lower the price that we agreed upon by fifty dollars, how soon could you have the money to me.’ He responded, ‘by this Sunday.’
The issue of the money was no longer a problem –God had provided me with more then enough money to attend the class, even after reducing the price arranged six months before with my brother.
That night I came home and went online for what I thought would be a short check of my e-mail. For no apparent reason I checked SermonAudio for mp3s of Brother Andrew and Brother Yun, of which they had none. I then looked to see what the most popular media at SermonAudio was.
I clicked and found myself listening to Paul Washer (the video below). I was quite moved by the message. It was nothing that I hadn’t heard before, but he had an urgency and authority that struck my heart cords. As I sat listening to it, I wondered what fruit, besides my job and my avid reading was there that I was a child of God –I quickly shook the thought out of my mind.
I attended the first Perspectives class and was blown away! It was everything I had hoped for and more. After the first meeting I felt like I could fly. It was so exciting and so encouraging, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that stuck with me from the Paul Washer video.
God ordained this weekend. For the last forty days our church has been praying for the retreat that I attended this past weekend. I’m pretty well known as an ‘alter-tramp’ as Leonard Ravenhill might call it, so I resolved not to make a commitment or rededication based on emotion. As more than half in attendance I sat in my chair and pondered what I had been reading, the Paul Washer sermon, the Perspectives class, and the retreat messages.
My take home commitment from the retreat wasn’t a emotionally charged but spiritually shallow dedication… I decided to set my heart to be grateful. Throughout the weekend I saw how blessed I had been by God in the past year, in fact in the past several years. I saw how God kept opening doors for me, even if they weren’t the doors that I wanted open. In my own selfishness I had missed just how much God had been pouring out his love for me.
Today I went to work resolved to work diligently. However by about one in the afternoon my strength was sapped. I began to surf the internet.
As I drove home from work I couldn’t help but feel ashamed that I had already showed my sloth and ungratefulness by one in the afternoon on Monday after the retreat. My eyes started welling up as I drove.
I reached my destination, I walked over to Shinka and pulled up a seat and began a six hour long reading marathon. I should take a step back now.
Last night a dear friend of mine shared with me that he was positive that he wasn’t saved… he believed in Jesus intellectually, he could see that it made the most sense, but he couldn’t take that leap of faith into believing that Jesus was the one and only way.
I was shocked; this was an older brother, a mentor, someone I trusted. I tried to answer him, but couldn’t find the words, all I could say is that I’d pray, and that I could recommend some books for him to read. Frankly, I also thought about my one spiritual dilemma over the weekend. How do you explain salvation to someone who believes in Jesus with his mind, but can’t make his heart respond?
I remembered one book that might have the answer, CS Lewis’ ‘Surprised by Joy.’ I immediately drove over to Half Priced books on Roosevelt and went directly to the religion section where I had made note of seeing the book two weeks before. I immediately found the book, and likewise found a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress for the desirable price of 42 cents that I also purchased.
I went to a café and took the opportunity to read more John Owen, Charles Finney and that night some CS Lewis and John Bunyan.
Today I likewise took one of my favorite seats at my favorite café and set upon the task of reading at least one chapter of each of the ten books that I had brought with me. It started well enough, KP Yohannan’s book Reflecting His Image was particularly challenging, I had to repent after reading the chapter with the same name as the book’s title, there was a checklist, and I was everything bad that was listed.
I continued onto the second chapter of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim. I read about the man who tried to sweep up the dusty room and only kicked up a cloud and I couldn’t help but think about the almost comical failure in my own life to mortify my sin. This chapter was in accord with John Owen and KP Yohannan.
Then I moved onto Charles Finney. What can I say; it was almost as if this entire week has been building up to that moment. I read the chapter and as I came to the last page of the lecture I realized that I had a strong conviction of the truth of Jesus Christ, just as my dear friend, however I lacked a very real conversion. The evidence was in front of me.
For the last several years I had been struggling tooth and nail with the same habitual sins, I had all but given up hope on numerous occasions… and have spent more time at the foot of the alter than any person at my church. Although I did my best to live a godly life, I knew in my own heart that it was all a sham. I am also aware than more than not most other people thought the same thing.
Confronted with the honesty of what I was reading, I had two choices. I could say to myself, ‘this is just Satan trying to make you doubt your salvation.’ Or I could honestly put down the book lift my hands towards the heavens and repent.
I don’t know how I looked in that café, I must imagine I was a rather interesting sight. Hunched over my pile of books with my hands in my face, wiping away my tears as I sniffed and shivered. There in that café I got what for years I have been trying to fake.
I admitted my own hypocrisy, I had to admit that although my lips had proclaimed all to often lofty and holy things, my heart was shrouded in the deepest darkest sin. All I could do is confess, and as Keith Green put it, “He’ll take care of the rest.”