Why Conversion?

“Conversion” is the process of changing or causing something to change from one form to another. From long time this word has being used to create tension between two sets of people who possess different religious faith. People are getting murdered because of being accused of religious conversion.

There is a term called “Forced Conversion”, which they term as someone getting converted to another religion/faith forcefully, through money or any worldly gift. Even changing religion for the reason of getting married is added to this term. Yes, this is being happening in lots of places.

There is a lot of misinterpretation going around about a person who is a believer of Jesus Christ. The world calls him/her as a Christian.

When you read and meditate upon the word of God, a Christian, or a follower of Christ is

·        Not the one who has a name mentioned in Bible

·        Not the one who attends church regularly

·        Not the one who takes part in all the activities of the church

·        Not the one whose personal certificate mentions his religion as Christian

The Bible teaches us that you are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3: 26). So when you are a child of God, the Spirit of God guides your life. You won’t be doing what your sinful nature carves (Galatians 5: 16, 17). That means when you are forced to do evil, like the worldly people, you will get a guilty feeling that this is wrong. So there will be a constant war inside you between the sinful nature and Spirit who is guiding you. So you are a person in Christ not by your works or because of your forefathers, nor is your name mentioned in a church register, but just because of your faith. And if you are in Christ, you will obviously do good works.

Once you are in Christ you will have the peace and joy in your heart in all situations of your life. Your love and care for others will increase and you will have a compassionate heart to help others to have that same peace and joy in their heart. More than that, God wants everyone to have that peace to fight against the evil because devil always does things in your life to see that you are defeated and depressed. So God wants his children to have a smile in every situation and praise him and have his guidance in their life and see the nations being blessed and yield blessed harvest (Psalms 67).

According to the bible even though a person does have a Christian name, there will be a point in his life when he decides to follow Jesus. Charismatic believers term it as “born again” experience. So actual conversion happens, even when a so called Christian who accepts Christ as his saviour and follow Jesus. The same happens to people from other religion also when they accept Christ, even in their home.

The greatest example we can find is a Jew called Saul. He was a hard-core Jew that he did everything to oppose the name of Jesus. He got authorized by the Jewish priest to persecute the people who follow Jesus. While going to persecute people, of course he would have heard about this Jesus. But one day he got stuck by this same Jesus. That changed his life and he became Paul, the one who wrote majority of epistles in the bible (Acts 26)

Another example, from India, is a man called Sadhu Sunder Singh. He was a core believer of another religion, even burnt bibles at young age, who was about to take his own life, got a dramatic vision of Jesus Christ. Immediately he got inner peace and took the decision to follow Christ and share about the one who gave him peace.

The word persecution comes along with the word conversion. Conversion happens only by God, not by people. But the people who share God are being persecuted. When Jesus lived in this world, he told about how it’s going to be. God is going to send you among wolves. But you need to be aware that you are going to get persecuted. You will be judged by the world. But in all these, walk with God and He will guide you what to tell. Everyone around might hate you because you follow Christ, but stay still and don’t go away from the Lord as you have seen his glory in your life (Mathew 10).

Apostle Paul went to places to destroy the people who followed Christ. Once Jesus Christ came to his life he went everywhere he can to preach Jesus Christ (Galatians 1). Once you know this salvation, you will understand the real believers in Christ are just a small percentage from among the so called Christians. The burden inside you to introduce this Jesus Christ to others will increase and you will find different means to reach the world with the good news.

May The Lord help you to understand Jesus Christ and the peace he gives and guide you to go ahead in life.