Conversion, II

FRI., JULY 19, 1991, 6:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

Hear, o son, some words of suggestion and encouragement in relation to your sermon on Monday next. The theme is Conversion, and you shall do it quite well, but you must be better prepared than you are now. You’re in a race to finish all that must be done before departure on Sunday.

I’ll repeat here the thought I offered you earlier in the week: conversion can be just a change from something good to something that seems better… a change from a blah state of spiritual nothingness to a positive, comfortable spiritual “place”… a change from a low, degraded state of being to a marvelous, spirit-filled way of life where the contrast is evident to self and to others. Sometimes becoming a Presbyterian is not a conversion experience, but merely a move from one denomination to another. You moved from being a Methodist to becoming a Congregationalist and then a Presbyterian and these were not conversion experiences. But your Presbyterian choice became a conversion when you realized your predestination… your calling. You had found the right tradition, even as most of your fellow “Calvinists” did not seem to feel this as you did.

Then your first conversion came in Bible study in that Presbyterian church. Slowly and non-spectacularly you were born again into a more active, more conscious relationship with Me. Your willingness to be involved in many aspects of church life, for spiritual reasons, increased. Your Christian commitment was evident in the church, but it was not part of your professional life.

Then your health perspective began to change. You did not attribute this to Me then, but you can say now that I was at work on a new conversion for you. For I then called you to this rather unique relationship – a mystical Christian who regularly hears the Holy Spirit in quite a definite, tangible way. Your conversion is not to some weird, ascetic sect. You are to remain a Presbyterian, where God alone is Lord of the conscience… which means that you can have this relationship with Me as long as you don’t try to convert all others to your way.

Your essential task is to live, daily, the happy, born-again Christian life. You are to become known as a professional and scholar interested in the spiritual dimension to health. You are to help others with such interests to develop these, as you did twice yesterday. You are to receive and maintain these Teachings and write four Ruminations Letters each year, under My direction. You are called to be a relatively normal mystic, a somewhat unique role.

Even though it is not your experience you must appreciate the relative power of other conversions. To have no spiritual convictions and only doubts is a sad state. Conversion to real belief in Me, the Triune God and particularly in Me as Jesus the Christ is a real change experience. And yet such a person may have led a good, clean, moral life, so that the conversion is more a matter of spirit, mind, and emotion than of behavior.

You also have not experienced the truly dramatic conversion – the person living a bitter, degraded, blasphemous life who rather suddenly sees Me breaking through and rescuing him. I love the enthusiasm of such converted ones, even as I realize some do relapse, partly because many churches aren’t truly effective with real “sinners.”