Conversion

With all his heart and with all his soul, God joins us in the pursuit of our everlasting joy because the consummation of that joy in him redounds to the glory of his own infinite worth. All who cast themselves on God find that they are carried into endless joy by God’s omnipotent commitment to his own glory:

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,

for how should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another. (Isa. 48:11, ESV)

Yes, omnipotent joy pursues the good of all who cast themselves on God! “The Lord takes pleasure . . . / in those who hope in his steadfast love” (Ps. 147:11, ESV). But this is not everyone.

“For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, ESV)—but not for everyone. There are sheep and there are goats (Matt. 25:32). There are wise and there are foolish (25:2). There are those who are being saved and those who are perishing (1 Cor. 1:18). And the difference is that one group has been converted and the other hasn’t.

Six Crucial Truths to Summarize Our Need and God’s Provision

First, God created us for his glory:

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the end of the earth,

everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory. (Isa. 43:6–7, ESV)

The proper understanding of everything in life begins with God. No one will ever understand the necessity of conversion who does not know why God created us. He created us “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27) so that we would image forth his glory in the world. We were made to be prisms refracting the light of God’s glory into all of life. It is a magnificent thing that God should want to give us a share in shining with his glory. Call it grace or mercy or love—it is an unspeakable wonder. Once we were not. Then we existed—for the glory of God!

Second, it is therefore the duty of every person to live for the glory of God: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, ESV). If God made us for his glory, it is clear that we should live for his glory. Our duty comes from God’s design.

Third, yet all of us have failed to glorify God as we ought: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23, ESV).

What does it mean to “fall short” of the glory of God? It does not mean that we are supposed to be as glorious as God is and that we have come short. We ought to fall short in that sense! We are not God. The best explanation of falling short is Romans 1:23. It says that those who did not glorify or thank God became fools “and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.” This is the way we “fall short” of the glory of God: we exchange it for something of lesser value. All sin comes from not putting supreme value on the glory of God—this is the very essence of sin—preferring anything above God.

Fourth, all of us are therefore subject to eternal condemnation by God. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23) and “they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess. 1:9, ESV).

Fifth, nevertheless, in his great mercy, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to save sinners by dying in their place on the cross and rising bodily from the dead:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ

Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Tim. 1:15, ESV)

[Jesus] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (Rom. 4:25, ESV)

Sixth, the benefits purchased by the death of Christ belong to those who repent and trust in him:

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. (Acts 3:19, ESV)

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. (16:31, ESV)

Not everybody is saved from God’s wrath just because Christ died for sinners. There is a condition we must meet in order to be saved. I want to try to show that the condition, summed up here as repentance and faith, is conversion and that conversion is nothing less than the creation of a Christian Hedonist.

In conversion, we find the hidden treasure of the kingdom of God. We venture all on it. And year after year in the struggles of life, we prove the value of the treasure again and again, and we discover depths of riches we had never known. And so the joy of faith grows. When Christ calls us to a new act of obedience that will cost us some temporal pleasure, we call to mind the surpassing value of following him. And by faith in his proven worth, we forsake the worldly pleasure. The result? More joy! More faith! Deeper than before. And so we go on from joy to joy and faith to faith.

Behind the repentance that turns away from sin and behind the faith that embraces Christ is the birth of a new taste, a new longing, a new passion for the pleasure of God’s presence. This is the root of conversion. This is the creation of a Christian Hedonist.