What is Next After Conversion?

What is next after you have converted to Christianity? What does that even mean? 

There are many opinions. 

Jack Hibbs is a pastor from California who said the church is called to make disciples not converts.  I loved that so much. Why? It is not enough to convert. That is simply step one. We are to Grow Up. The last thing Jesus said before leaving his disciples on earth to start the Christian church was to go and make disciples, teaching them to obey all my commands. Conversion is just the start.

So, to begin with, let's clarify the bad news, good news, and the rest of the story. The bad news is the human condition, the church calls it the fall or sin. We are not able to make ourselves right with God which the church calls righteousness without His help. The good news is that He made a way to rectify this through receiving His Son, Jesus to be the payment we need to set things right and the church calls this justification and redemption. When we turn from our sin church calls this repentance and chose to go in the direction of our Creator, seeking Him and His guidance, accepting His solution for our condition the church calls that salvation. The rest of the story is where we live the rest of our saved, converted, Christian lives.

If we spend time learning what He commanded, we will begin to grow up in our relationship with God and others. This is a process the church calls sanctification. This is a lifelong process that will refine us. The great thing about that is it is with the help of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't save us so we will refine ourselves. He even sets us up in an imperfect family of believers who make up the church. We are not alone.

If you want to learn more about this process, Grow Up is a study intended for those seeking what is next after salvation. It is a companion and guide to encourage you to get into the Word of God so that the Word of God can get into you and transform you.

Are you ready to step into the "what's next" for your journey with God? Take the journey. Call others to join you. Doing it together is much better. Encourage a small group of family, friends or neighbors to do it with you.

Grow Up Website for details

Purchase Grow Up Study Use this link if you are interested in purchasing the study.

Grow Up Blog announcing the latest updates now available.

From the Old to the New Testament! YAY

From the Mount of Olives

I have spent this year reading my way through the Bible. By the end of the year, I will have read the entire thing.  The women in our church were challenged to do it in Discipleship Groups. I joined with seven other women, and we are doing it together.

I am so glad that I did this. It is officially the first time I have done it somewhat successfully. I have studied the bible in-depth and probably read much of it through studies. This effort is from Genesis to Revelation. Today was a huge marker for me. I read the last book in the Old Testament. I made it to and read Malachi. I cannot lie. A huge sigh of relief came over me. My takeaway from reading the Old Testament is how faithful, good, and super slow to anger God is. Following that takeaway is how flawed humanity is and prone to mess up and wander. As I read it, I reminded myself that these people didn't have the Spirit of God dwelling within them as I do. So, I had to offer them such grace and mercy. They were fully captured by their human condition. Even the best of them were steeped in sin.

As I ended the book of Malachi, I was washed over with a sense of excitement, and then a thought occurred to me. For the Israelites, it will be four hundred years before they will hear anything from God again. The silence made my heart hurt, but then Jesus broke through that silence and came onto the scene with good news for us all. Hallelujah!

After reading about man's effort to reach God, finally, there is a way.  We will never be good enough, proven repeatedly in the Old Testament books. My right position with God gives me access to God. It gives me access to be in an intimate relationship with my Creator. Before I accepted Jesus' payment for my sinful condition, I was doomed to miss the mark of God's expectations. That means I was lost in my sin. I am doomed to repeat it over and over. However, I am no longer defined by that sin and am now being referred to as a saint by authors like Paul, who authored a good deal of the New Testament. That means I am defined by what Jesus did, not by what I have done.  That is not just good news. It is the best news ever.

I am so excited to start the New Testament tomorrow.

I am doing "The Bible Recap" with Tara Leigh Cobble. I use the You Version App, and it is one of the plans you can choose.  Day 274 is where the New Testament starts. The author also does a podcast to help navigate each day's reading. Each time you start a new book of the bible, there is a video by "The Bible Project" that summarizes the book.

This is well done and highly doable. It has been challenging but rewarding.

After you read this, I hope you will go and check it out. Come along on the journey.

If you read this and sense the Holy Spirit prick your conscience, do not ignore it. Respond to it in an honest conversation with Him. You see, I cannot convict you of sin, nor can I convince you of your right relationship and standing before God. What I can do is pray for you. I pray that the God of the Universe will open the eyes of your heart so that you can comprehend how much He longs to spend time with you and do life with you. I pray that you will comprehend that apart from Him, you can do nothing to be right with Him. If a still, small voice is speaking to you right now, do not ignore it. Instead, say YES to it today. I have never regretted saying yes to God's answer to my sin problem. Not once. It changed the trajectory of my life. I will thankfully never be the same again. I pray that you comprehend that you can be a saint by responding to His answer too.

If you already are in Christ, I pray that you will be immersed in God's word so that His word will live richly in you. Once we welcome Jesus as our sin solution, we can spend time continuing to conform to the norms of this world, or we can cooperate with God by His Spirit, who gladly will guide us through all of life's temptations, trials, and responses. It seems that mentioning obedience in today's culture brings a negative connotation, but I think it is a place of growth for us. 

If I am going to drive from point A to point B, the best person to ask is the one that travels it. There may be a multitude of ways you can go. Some may take you off-road, through detours, in dangerous places, but one takes you there quickly and safely. He gave us a wonderful roadmap called the Bible. It is not demanding; it is the best way to navigate this life. It doesn't promise you that there will not be trials on the journey or even storms. Jesus tells us there will be, but it is the BEST way!

The Bible Recap

Full Pardon

Have you read Isaiah 53 lately? In it he writes about Jesus years before He comes to earth. He indicates what will happen to the Messiah who is to come. 

I was floored by the revelation in verse 7 where it is prophesied that he would not open His mouth. In Dr. Chuck Missler’s book “Learn the Bible in 24 Hours” he says, “He made no defense because He couldn’t; He was in our shoes and we are guilty.” I am undone by this. 

I always thought how hard it would be to remain silent when you are being accused unjustly. But He chose to be unjustly accused because He chose to stand before His accusers and take on each one of our guilt and shame. We are the guilty party. Receive it or not, we are the guilty ones worthy to be condemned. But because the innocent Lamb did not speak up for His own innocence, we are offered a full pardon from God for our crimes against Him. FULL PARDON.  Let that sink in.  We will not be held to account for all the wrong in our lives if we accept what He did for us, humbly confess we are sinful, and turn to Him in repentance. 

Deep in each of our souls, we know our own depravity. We know our own evil thoughts. We recognize our own frailty. We just allow the world system to keep us too busy and distracted, so we do not have to face these facts about ourselves. 

If we will humble ourselves and receive what He has done for us, we can be set free to enjoy all that this silent lamb did for us. He was silent so He could pay our sin debt so we could be free.  That is crazy. Crazy love, crazy grace and crazy mercy.

Becoming the Living Word of God by Faith

As I have shared earlier in the year, I am memorizing scripture. The method I am using is actually working for the first time. I joined a group online called SSMT, and we committed to memorize one verse every two weeks. I even participated in making this nice index card notebook complete with cover and all. So what has happened? The word has become more available to me and is becoming alive in me.

I have finished the second week in Living Free and combined its review with the group of scriptures in Philippians 3 that I have been memorizing.  As part of solidifying it in me and helping me make sense of it all, I decided to share it here.

Paul starts with a warning to the Philippians to watch out for those who try to teach them to live by their own righteousness.  (Even some who mutilate the flesh to conform and beat the flesh into submission and obedience to the law.) He then list the multiple reasons he has for having confidence in his flesh.  He talks about how he kept the letter of the law.

Then he gets to verse 7 & 8 where he tells them that ALL of his works he counts as garbage, refuse, & filth so that he may gain Christ. Keep in mind he is counting all of his self-righteousness also as filth.

He desires to know and be found in Christ Jesus his Lord.  He says that he wants to be found in Christ not having a righteous of His own, but one that is through faith in Christ – which is a righteousness from God based on faith.  His goal is to KNOW Christ, to KNOW His resurrection power, to fellowship in His suffering and to be conformed to His death.

He notes that he has not fully reached the goal or is already mature, but he makes every effort to take hold of it because he has been taken hold of by Christ.  Although he hasn’t taken hold of it, he forgets all the past (good and bad – shame and accomplishments) and reaches forward to the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

He says that all who are mature should think this way.  However, if any of them think differently, God will let them know. So they need to live up to the truths they have attained (reached or grasped).  They need to follow in his example.

Therefore, our right standing with God is not determined by our effort, work and determination; it is simply through faith in God's completed work through Jesus available to us by His Holy Spirit. It is through believing that God made a way for us to fellowship with Him, and that way is believing what He says about Jesus, about us and about everything. We are made right by our belief and saved by our verbal confession of this belief that He is our Lord (Rom 10:10). Oh that we would remember it is that simple. Believe and confess. 

(We strive for the wrong thing - often times we strive to become what we already are -  instead we should simply strive to know Him)

We spend so much time working for Him, and He wants and desires to just work with us and through us.  Why, because He desires fellowship, friendship, relationship, closeness with us. He wants to talk to us, and He wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to KNOW Him intimately. He also wants to use us as His instruments of righteousness so that the world will know Him, believe Him, enter into a relationship with Him and so on and so on...

Sin interferes with our ability to fellowship with Him. We need to deal with our sin because sin interrupts our connection with God. It interrupts our ability to be used by God in a world that is in desperate need of Him and His mighty hand; which is us.

We do not need to pursue right standing with God because we have that when we believe! Rather, we need to strive to take hold of the prize promised by God in Christ. The prize of knowing Him. The goal of becoming His glorious masterpiece when we walk CLOSELY with Him, pursue HIM, resemble Him. The end result is that we become the very glory, reflection, image and manifestation of Christ to the world. We then are able to be satisfied in all situations. We are able to enter into a peace that passes all understanding regardless of our circumstances which provides us much needed rest.  We can truly enjoy His Presence in our lives. His presences is the Holy Spirit which brings to life the entire Word of God in us over the course of our lives.

Note that Paul says to live up to whatever truth you have attained. I believe as we mature and grow up in our salvation, we live out more and more of the Word, not through determination of the will, but through the enabling power of God in us, equipping us through the Holy Spirit. (That enabling power in us is the RESURRECTION POWER- the power it takes to bring back to life that which was dead is equipping us and maturing us!!!  AMEN! Hallelujah! That should make us all shout for joy)

We develop a close relationship with God by His Holy Spirit. That closeness begins to produce in us the fulfillment of the law. (Not by our effort, but by His.)

When we see we fall short of whatever truth we have attained, note to self: Walk closely with God. We should ask Him to help us live up to this truth. 

The revelation that we fall short of whatever truth is made known to us, may be an indicator that we have quenched His Spirit by our actions (sin). We just need to confess and repent. Which simply put is to agree with God that our actions are offensive to Him and stop the action.

 

All of this is simple, it is just hard!!!!

Just like digging a hole is a simple task, it is just hard work!!!

But if you need the hole the hard work is worth it.

This is true of knowing Christ Jesus, the effort it takes is worth it.  The value of knowing Christ is priceless!

We Can Stand Right Before God!!!

Looking at the issue of righteousness, or better said, right standing with God; I really wanted to talk a bit more about this issue of right actions versus being right to follow up on an earlier post. 

I believe that by our confidence in Christ, our being convinced of Christ and our assurance of Christ as our savior and accepting it, is what believing/faith in Christ is all about. We accept it and believe that the Word of God regarding us and Christ is true, therefore we are right with God. 

Once we have believed and are righteous, we live our lives with our new standing with God. Our actions begin to demonstrate and produce evidence of our right standing with God. We are first proclaimed to be right by our faith. Then there is a process which begins to refine us. Our actions begin to transform into righteous actions. It doesn't mean we will get it right all the time, that is the reason we see in the scripture the need for "there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 

We will fall short of God's glory. We will sin. Scripture tells us that if we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves. That is why we need a savior to save us from our tendency toward sin. However, as we walk in fellowship with Him. there is a transformation that occurs. 

I pray that we will remember that for ourselves as well as for others. I read the following blog today and really wanted an excuse to link it to my blog. I really appreciate what it was about. You can click on the link. Some of us may be able to identify with the girl at the prom who had fallen in one way or another. I hope we are sometimes the husband applauding and encouraging those who have fallen or struggling. I hope that if we are the ones casting the harsh looks or judgment, we would take the time to put ourselves in the shoes of the fallen or stuggling, and imagine how you would like to be treated. This is where we can apply the golden rule, treat others the way you would like to be treated.  

The Law's Purpose

The law instructs us but doesn't save us. The law does not make us righteous. See blog Being Righteous or Acting Righteous Christ makes us righteous by our faith in Him and by our confession we are saved. Once we get to know Christ, we can't help but love him. That love equips us and spurs us on to surrender to obey his leading, instruction, and orders. The law is dead without Christ, so we follow Christ out of love and thankfulness, gratefulness, in an attitude of thanksgiving we desire to follow the law. The love we have fulfills the law in us. The law in its self does not save but mere adherance to the law does bring about order. We need Christ to fulfill the law in us. We are not capable by ourselves to keep the law.

I for one am so thankful that God made a way and it is by faith in God's provision of Jesus Christ on the cross for us. It is by our relationship with Him by the Holy Spirit in us and by the Word of God guiding and directing us we grow in love. The love will fulfill all the requirements of the law.

I hope this makes sense. It sure does to me.

Jesus paid it all and all to Him I owe. Sin left a crimson stain but He washed it white as snow. I just have to believe.

Being Righteous or Acting Righteous

Does the dogwood have to do anything to bloom? The dogwood was created to bloom and have leaves. It just stays put and absorbs the nutrients that surrounds it both in the soil and the air. In times of drought the roots just go deeper to find water which enables it to get more firmly rooted. Wonder how much we could learn from the dogwood?

I was pondering the ever so slight difference in being righteous and acting righteous.

According to scripture we are righteous not by our doing but by our believing. The Word says "if we confessed with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we are saved.  For it is with heart a man believes and is made righteous and with the mouth he confesses and is saved." Roman 10-9-10

I know that in Philippians 3:9 we do not have a righteousness of our own from keeping the law, but one that is through faith in Jesus, the righteousness that is from God based on faith.

I truly believe that  I am righteous by my faith in Christ. Which means we have been made right with God by our faith in Jesus Christ payment for us.

So just as a the dogwood doesn't strive to be a dogwood, it just is, so we are righteous by our faith. We do not have to perform or try to be righteous. Based on that belief and our right standing, our righteousness will begin to be displayed in our actions.

This righteousness / right standing with God means we are at peace with God. But since we are already righteous does that give us a right to go on sinning? Paul looked at this in Romans 6 as you can see below.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master,because you are not under law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin,which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery 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 to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Romans tells us that the law demonstrates and reveals sin. It shows us we cannot measure up. It shows us that our righteousness comes from our belief. So if we believe and we are right with God because of it, I believe our actions will begin to line up with our beliefs. I recommend spending some time in Romans and see what Paul was talking about.

I dare you.

Righteousness

Romans 4:20-24

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness--for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

When you read these verses, it is just a great reminder that our righteousness, or our right-ness with God is made possible by our believing what God said and says.

The good news is that we are found in Him, not having a righteousness of our own by following the law, but one that is through faith in Jesus; the righteousness from God based on faith. Phil 3:9