unless
you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the
kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 18:3
These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we
should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every
day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God’s, we
produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through
His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure
that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the
Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no
guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the
spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse
to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains
unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must “put on the new man…” (Ephesians
4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and
He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule—
God must rule in us.
To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in
the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives
where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.”
We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What
God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our
lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done
by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole
territory for the Spirit of God.
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