True Conversion

In the early to mid-1970s, Burger King ran a series of much-lampooned but successful and catchy television commercials in which its employees would sing: "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce. Special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way!"

There are many who are looking for a religion, a church that holds back the truths of God's Word saying, Hold the preaching on the blood, hell and sin and tell us only good things of men, let us have it our way. The sad thing there are churches that have adopted the slogan, let us serve it your way.

There is a verse in the Bible that is absolutely horrifying; Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter." There are many that are holding on the coat tail of religion who in their minds think they have something that is right. They have created their own Jesus, but he is not the Jesus of Scripture. God does not reveal Himself apart from the Word of God. Jesus Christ is no ones 'homeboy' or any other slang name one could come up with. He is not to be made to sound cool in todays terms for He is Lord. Those who have truely experienced conversion follow Him and do His will. He is the Master and we are His slaves.

Jesus told Nicodemus, one must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. This means 'born from above.' John MacArthur writes, New birth is an act of God where eternal life is imparted to the believer. The sinner is in need of spiritual transformation that is produced by the Holy Spirit. The best way to understand true conversion as that we die to self and live for God. Many are just merely joining a religious institution and missing God.

The following is a devotion from Charles H. Spurgeon that I copied from Phil Johnson's blog.

Though I rejoice in sudden conversions, I entertain grave suspicions of those suddenly happy people who seem never to have sorrowed over their sin. I am afraid that those who come by their religion so very lightly often lose it quite as lightly. Saul of Tarsus was converted on a sudden, but no man ever went through a greater horror of darkness than he did before Ananias came to him with the words of comfort.I like deep ploughing. Top-soil skimming is poor work; the tearing of the soil under surface is greatly needed. After all, the most lasting Christians appear to be those who have seen their inward disease to be very deeply seated and loathsome, and after awhile have been led to see the glory of the healing hand of the Lord Jesus as he stretches it out in the gospel.I am afraid that in much modern religion there is a want of depth on all points; they neither deeply tremble nor greatly rejoice, they neither much despair nor much believe. Oh, beware of pious veneering! Beware of the religion which consists in putting on a thin slice of godliness over a mass of carnality. We must have thorough going work within; the grace which reaches the core, and affects the innermost spirit is the only grace worth having.To put all in one word, a want of the Holy Ghost is the great cause of religious instability. Beware of mistaking excitement for the Holy Ghost, or your own resolutions for the deep workings of the Spirit of God in the soul. All that ever nature paints God will burn off with hot irons. All that nature ever spins he will unravel and cast away with the rags. Ye must be born from above, ye must have a new nature wrought in you by the finger of God himself, for of all his saints it is written, "Ye are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus."Oh, but, everywhere I fear there is a want of the Holy Spirit! there is much getting up of a tawdry morality, barely skin deep, much crying "Peace, peace," where there is no peace, and very little deep heart-searching anxiety to be throughly purged from sin. Well-known and well-remembered truths are believed without an accompanying impression of their weight; hopes are flimsily formed, and confidences ill founded, and it is this which makes deceivers so plentiful, and fair shows after the flesh so common.

It is my prayer, that you know Jesus Christ and you have been plowed deep with conviction over your sin and you were born again.

Philippians 2:12-13, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

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