Our culture is fixated on quick fixes: get rich quick schemes, weight loss without changing your eating habits or exercise, no-fault divorce etc. Unfortunately, quick fixes do not solve problems; they merely treat symptoms with short-term results.
Today, many have moved this quick-fix concept into religion. They seek to have a relationship with God with little or no effort. We must know that in order to be right with God it takes time, energy and effort. There is no quick and easy fix to sin and its consequences. Genuine conversion is a diligent and sometimes painful ongoing process. Many seek this quick fix: faith without faithfulness; baptism without crucifying the old man; forgiveness without repentance; a savior without discipleship. Is this possible? What does genuine conversion look like?
Genuine conversion is becoming a changed person. Repentance is not secondary to conversion. “What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Listen to Jesus on becoming such a changed person: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Crosses are not something we carry, but something we die upon. Paul goes on to say that when we die to sin, then we become “instruments of God, living sacrifices.”
Genuine conversion involves a death and a resurrection to a new life.Genuine New Testament conversion is our becoming a changed person – how we think, what we think about, how we talk, act, and react to life’s situations. Paul tells us in Romans, that after baptism “we are raised to walk in a new life.” Conversion is our becoming more and more and more like Jesus daily. It is our “conforming to the image of His son.” You see, in conversion, old things are passed away: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Are we willing to be raised to walk such a new life?
Genuine conversion is discipleship.Religious quick-fix advocates want a savior without Him becoming Lord and King of their life, without total submission to His will. Our generation shuns the idea of a Lordship Gospel. We don’t want anyone telling us how to live; but genuine conversion is our walking as He walked, living according to His word, making His agenda our agenda. Jesus said, “If you love Me you will keep My commandments. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus walked… For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age… eager to do what is good.”
Genuine conversion is perseverance.Conversion is an ongoing process. Christianity is a matter of keeping-on-keeping-on, being faithful until death. Paul wrote: “I have fought the fight, run the race, finished the course, kept the faith.” The crown of life is not given as a quick fix, but as a reward for continual faithfulness. The Hebrew writer says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.” Genuine conversion demands continued faithfulness.
Religious quick fixes are only Band-Aids. Perhaps they give us instant relief and a momentary religious look, but offer no lasting cure. There is no quick and easy solution to the problem of sin except genuine conversion.
Andy Brenton