WHAT
is this Conversion that you talk so much about, and say people must
have?” asked an officer one day of a private who was an earnest, active
Christian.
Sir,” was the reply, “it is when the Captain of
our Salvation cries ‘Halt!’ and then when we halt, cries ‘About
turn!' “ Conversion is more than "theory,” or "head
knowledge,” or “talk.” It strikes deeper than the skin: it
influences the heart. A reformed man is not a converted man. Conversion is
not a beginning to amend or trying to be better, but is a great cure done
at once, and done for ever.
An earthly doctor cures his patients by making them
better every day, but conversion is God’s work on human beings that
transforms them from being a children of Satan, to being a children of
God.
Conversion is a turning round, a being something
that I was not before. It is having a new motive power, new hopes,
desires, relationships, going a new road, sailing to another port, having
a new owner, being under fresh orders.
A truly converted person will be able to say: I was
blind, but now I see; I was lame, but now I walk; I was dumb, and now I
speak.
