In Part One, we looked at God’s two Kingdoms and how vital they are to our lives in eternity. Each one plays a major part in the process we go through, as we walk with the Lord Jesus through life and look forward to our eternal life with Him in His Heaven. To recall God’s two Kingdoms from Part One, we learned there is the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.
> The Kingdom of God
> The Kingdom of Heaven
In Part One, we looked at God’s two Kingdoms and how vital they are to our lives in eternity. Each one plays a major part in the process we go through, as we walk with the Lord Jesus through life and look forward to our eternal life with Him in His Heaven.
To recall God’s two Kingdoms from Part One, we learned there is the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.
Remember how the Kingdom of God is the spiritual dimension in which God carries out His spiritual operations here on earth, in the here and now. The Kingdom of God consists of born-again Christians, known as children of God or believers. These children of God, live in this physical world, but their purpose is to live for God’s will to be done on earth...as it is in Heaven.
Believers at work in the Kingdom of God here on earth!
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/group-of-people-holding-hands-praying-worship-believe-gm847575018-140432051?searchscope=image%2Cfilm
And remember that the Kingdom of Heaven is the specific place from where God rules and manages the created universe for His glory. Within the Kingdom of Heaven, God has His family with Him... made up of the elect angels and those believers in history, who reached the end of their human lives on earth, died, and were taken up to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The inhabitants in the Kingdom of Heaven worshiping and serving God!
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=474505518014868&set=a.474505491348204
For every person who is ever born into this world, their most urgent need as they grow up and live through their years...is to be born-again spiritually into God’s Kingdom here on earth, because only those who are a part of the Kingdom of God here on earth, will go up and into God’ eternal Kingdom of Heaven when they die.
We identified this born-again experience as “CONVERSION” and that conversion is the only way into the Kingdom of God (John 3). Any human being, who desires to go to God’s Heaven after this life, must be converted into the Kingdom of God first here on earth. There is no other way.
There are no other intermediate stages between life on earth and life in Heaven.
So here in Part Two, we will begin an in-depth study of the biblical experience of conversion, with the hope that each reader will come to see their need for conversion in a crystal clear way...beyond all doubts or confusion.
The word conversion is only used in the Bible as a noun one time in Acts 15:3. The Greek word there translated “conversion” into English is Επιστροφην (epistrophe) from the root word Στρεφω and has a very simple meaning:
-
To turn back.
-
To turn around.
-
To return.
So, Epistrophe simply means “a turning about to God”. In the context of Acts 15, it is referring to Gentiles who turned away from their idolatry to the one true living God (the God of the Jews in the Bible), by believing in and trusting in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
The Bible uses the analogy or the imagery of moving from darkness to light’ to portray or represent the movement of turning in conversion.
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/silhouettes-of-people-walking-into-light-gm164773693-22949556?searchscope=image%2Cfilm
There is also another Greek word that is used in relationship to epistrophe (conversion) and that is metanoeó literally meaning ‘to think again’ (https://biblehub.com/greek/3340.htm) or:
I change my mind! I repent!
I repent!
I change my mind.
A change of the inner man (particularly with reference to acceptance of the will of God)!
Repentance is a vital part of the conversion process. When one repents, they have considered the way they were going and concluded they were going in the wrong direction. So, they repent...they turn around and go in the opposite direction.
In the context of conversion, a person has concluded he or she has been trusting in the wrong thing for their salvation (the way to eternal life), whether that be an idol or a false-Christ or themselves.
If you are trusting in yourself to get to Heaven on your own, in any form or fashion or to any degree, you are an idolater of the worst kind. You are actually worshiping yourself and the goodness or righteousness you attribute to yourself.
So, they have turned away from whatever they were trusting in and turned solely to the Lord Jesus Christ...for their salvation. This turning is a part of their conversion.
1 Thessalonians 1:9, the apostle Paul commended the Christians in the city of Thessalonica for how they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. They converted from their worship of false and worthless man-made idols to a relationship with the living God.
Conversion in verb form (στρεφω...strepho) means to:
> Turn: Like the turning of traveling horses or soldiers from one direction to another direction. In our study, conversion is turning a person from the wrong way in life to the right way in life, which in biblical terms means to turn from trusting yourself to trusting Christ.
> Twist: Like to turn the ends of something like a thread or a rope in an opposite direction. In the context of our study, we are referring to twisting a person around to go in the opposite direction. He or she twists around from going their own way to going God’s way.
> Wind: The verb 'to wind' is an irregular verb, which primarily means to turn something or make it turn. It is most commonly used with ropes, cables, rotating handles, and keys. Again, in our study, we are referring to turning a person from darkness to light.
Therefore, CONVERSION is turning away from any attempts to keep any of God’s moral laws and/or commandments, as a way to earn your way to heaven...because it is impossible to do.
As one turns away from these futile attempts, one turns to faith in what Jesus Christ did for each of us, when He died a hideous, sacrificial death on a Roman Cross for us. He took the punishment that we deserved for violating everyone of God’s moral laws and/or commandments.
The prophet Isaiah supernaturally explained the suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross 750 years before it happened. If you are not familiar with his prophecies in Isaiah 53, you will be astonished.
Each reference to Jesus is in red bold text. Every reference to you is in gold bold text. You can insert your name where ever you see gold bold text. Explanatory notes in parenthesis are mine.
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him (God the Father) like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, (and there was) nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces...He was despised...and we held Him in low esteem.
Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God (the Father), stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was laid on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord (God the Father) has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away. Yet who of His generation protested? For He was cut off from the land of the living (He died on the cross). For the transgression of My (God the Father) people He was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death (a rich man named Joseph from Arimathea, buried Jesus in the tomb he had prepared for himself...but Jesus only needed the tomb for three days, so Joseph go it back.), though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s (God the Father) will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord (God the Father) makes His life an offering for sin (our sin), He will see His offspring (you and I...the converted) and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord (God the Father) will prosper in His hand.
After He has suffered (on the Roman cross), He will see the light of life (In His resurrection) and be satisfied. By His knowledge My (God the Father) righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I (God the Father) will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death (on the Roman cross), and was numbered with the transgressors (the two criminals crucified with Him...one on each side.). For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (you and I).
*************************************************************
So, the essence of conversion is that you are converted to a person....to Jesus Christ as Lord, Master, and Savior. You are not converted to a religion or a denomination or a church or a set of ceremonial rituals or to a philosophy or to anything else you could add to that. If you are converted, you are converted to the person of Jesus Christ, and you become His forever.
If you have been converted, you were converted from something to something. What were you converted from?
- You were converted from error to truth (belief). You came to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:4 explains how God wanted you to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth...how salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from any righteous things you could ever do. 2 Timothy 1:9: He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time....
- You were converted from sin to godliness, as we see in Romans 6:18-22: You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
- You were converted from loving the world and the things in the world to loving Christ and the things in His kingdom. The Apostle John was very clear about how conversion transforms one’s desires and affections. In 1 John 2:15-17...John said, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
I would like to paraphrase the verses above for you in light of conversion.
“If you have been truly converted, you will lose your love and desire for the temporary-empty things that are in the world. If you do not over time, lose your desire for the world, then the love of the Father is not in you (you were really not converted). Our heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit will not allow the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life to continue in your life. If you have been truly converted, you will want to do the will of Jesus Christ”.
- You were converted from a spirit of fear to the spirit of love. Paul told young Timothy, that as a person converted to Christ, God was now giving him the spirit of love to replace the spirit of fear (that one has as an unbeliever).
2 Timothy 1:7: For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
In Part 3, we will begin by considering what unbelievers do fear and then we will break down the process or the experience of conversion down into parts...that are easy to grasp.
*************************************************************
Thank you for the time you invested in reading through Part 2. I hope you will find Part 3 helpful next time.
Yours in Christ,
Gene
Do you have some thoughts, feelings, or questions about what you read today in this specific devotional/commentary?
If you will submit those using the form below, Gene can read them, study them, and reply to them just as soon as possible.