Called to Conversion, Repentance, and a Holy Lent

We will be continually converting, constantly called to repentance. Lent is the season that reminds us of this reality and invites us to embrace it!

A few weeks ago we celebrated the conversion of Saint Paul on the liturgical calendar. I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea conversion ever since. And with Lent kicking off tomorrow, repentance and the whole journey we take during this season is also on my mind. 

Conversion! 

Talking and preaching about conversion isn’t very popular these days. There are some good and not-so-good reasons for this, but the fact is, old-fashioned conversion, people getting “saved” isn’t a pressing or popular idea for a lot of Christians. The values of caring for the poor, being concerned with social issues and simply being a good human often seem more important than someone being converted and committed to Christ. 

Repentance is usually omitted alongside conversion. Again, there are some good reasons we left behind the idea of repentance as our Sunday school teachers and grandmas used to present it. Repentance specifically has made a bit of a resurgence these day but it's typically used around issues of justice and morality. I think this is good. We do need to repent of how we have viewed the “other” and how we have thought and acted in ways that are misaligned with the kingdom, especially toward the widows, orphans, and immigrants—rightly translated as the marginalized of our day. But when it comes to the sort of repentance that is paired with our conversion to Christ and the sin that so easily entangles us, some of that old-fashioned kind of repentance, I don’t hear much about that. 

I don’t want to pit our call to social concerns, to love and serve our neighbor who is poor, marginalized, and left behind against the call to conversion, repentance of sin, and new life in Christ. All of this is part of a whole journey. I just wonder if we’ve gotten really quiet about the first bit—repentance and conversion to Christ and his kingdom, and focused in on the second bit—living out the kingdom life we have been converted to, sometimes forgetting the kingdom and our need for repentance and conversion? It’s kinda like we are skipping our first steps and just trying to run. I wonder if we want good people who work for justice but are less concerned with faithful people who have been converted to Christ and his kingdom?

In the midst of this, there seems to be a desire to not offend people when it comes to religion, faith, and many issues of the day. If we call people to be converted to Christ what does that say about their religion, understanding, and current modes of being? I think I’m aware of this because in my pursuit of kindness and respect I too have diminished the value of conversion and repentance at times. 

There is a contingent of the Christian witness that has pushed back on a virtue of non-offense and in so doing has made many of us double down, we don’t want to be like “those Christians.” Too many people give God the credit for their belligerent posture toward "The World". These folks are quick to tell you when they think you're wrong, eager to shout their version of truth, and prone to tell anybody who will listen how they’re going to hell and need to repent and be converted to Christianity. They want to convert people, they want people to repent, and you can usually hear them say as much from all the way down the street. 

People like this seem to go out of their way to be offensive as if offense and confrontation are Christian virtues that will produce the fruit of eternal life. They berate others for their soft, even feminine Christianity. In their imagination, the correction is to be loud, argue for “truth” with aggression, and display a posture of confidence and correctness at all costs. Many of us have reacted to this posture, maybe over-corrected because we don’t want to be like that. 

On all sides, the biblical values of kindness, patience, and love have been greatly diminished in our pursuit of being right and speaking the truth and even advocating for good in our world. This diminishment of true Christian virtue seems to be happening everywhere, especially on Twitter, and sometimes it comes when we have the best of intentions. 

However, my experience is that fear tactics, manipulation, and argumentation seldom if ever bring about the kind of conversion we would hope and pray for in ourselves or others. This is true regardless of what you’re arguing for. Think of all the hot-button issues of our day, have you ever heard someone argue well enough or shout loud even enough to change someone’s mind, to convert them to the other side of the argument? I haven’t. 

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

1 Timothy 2:24-26

I might be conflating a couple of things here but I think they are linked. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about conversion to the Christian life or the continued conversion of beliefs, ideas, or practices. Not many of us have a healthy, Jesus centered way to think and pray for conversion and repentance.  

Lent is the perfect season for us to do some reflecting on this very thing!

The Scripture is pretty clear, it’s not enough to be a good person, morally pure, a good neighbor, or even to feed the hunger and fight injustice. It’s not enough to fight for truth, vote the right way, be pro-life, and live uncompromised in a corrupt world. The preeminent call is a conversion of heart, mind, and soul; a conversation to Christ and his kingdom! This is what the scripture talks about, a conversion from death to life, darkness to light and it is something we should pray for and proclaim to others. This entails a repentance of sin and new life in his kingdom. 

We should always remember our own conversion and the repentance that Jesus brought about in our lives because, as we are reminded during Lent, death is always before us and without the life-giving Spirit of God we are lost in our unrighteousness and bound by sin and death. It doesn’t matter how “good” we are or how many good things we have done. So we remember and give thanks for our conversion and we pray for the conversion of others! 

The good done by those who aren’t Christian, who haven’t been converted is another matter altogether. I love it and want to work alongside anybody who is loving people and working for the good of humanity. I also want to pray they are converted to Christ because it isn’t, first and foremost about their good work. My prayer is they see the face of Christ in those they serve and fight for and in seeing the face of Christ I pray that they would repent and be converted. 

There is so much I could say here but for the sake of these thoughts I’ll try to stay focused on this idea that we need to reclaim the place of conversion in our thinking, the priority of repentance in our understanding of Jesus and his invitation to us. 

Big or little, once or many…

I think I’ve alluded to this but along with our initial conversion to Christ and the repentance of sin, I think there is a continuing conversion that happens and a constant call to repentance. This is a primary focus of the season of Lent.

Where have you become misaligned with the Kingdom of God or out of sync with the Holy Spirit? What issues or actions do you need to reconsider because they are bringing death and not life to your days?

Yes, I think we need to repent and be converted! We also need to live lives that are open to constant repentance and continued conversion.

If it’s true that the Spirit of God is with and in us, wouldn’t it make sense that we will be shown new things, called not just once but over and over again to convert our life and mind, our actions and thinking to the Kingdom of God? This is at the very heart of what it means to repent. We rethink, change our minds, and think again in the way of Jesus. I don’t think conversion has to look like Paul’s, to be as dramatic as his. Maybe our repentance isn’t as radical as Paul’s, after all, I hope not many of you are going around killing Christians. We probably don’t have to rethink sometime that serious! But I do think, whether in a gentle moment or dramatic scene we will experience an initial conversion. I don’t think you can be converted and not experience radical repentance. To rethink your entire life, prioritizing Jesus and aligning everything to the Kingdom of God is big even if your repentance doesn’t include rethinking your persecution and execution of Christians. 

But let’s be honest. As big or as gentle as our initial conversion might be, as drastic as our initial repentance might seem there will be an ongoing and constant alignment the Holy Spirit instigates in our lives. We’ll change our mind again and again, slowly thinking and acting more and more like Jesus. We’ll be converted time and time again because it’s inevitable, in our growth and formation God will reveal new ways of thinking and acting that are more closely aligned with his heart and kingdom. 

We will be continually converting, constantly called to repentance.

Lent is the season that reminds us of this reality and invites us to embrace it! 

God has given Lent as a gift and the church invites us to embrace it so that we may, for the first time or once again be converted to Christ. We journey through Lent so that we can reflect on our life and re-think or repent of anything, anyway in which our mind doesn’t line up with the mind of Christ.

I also wonder if this Lent we should reclaim conversion and repentance for ourselves and for others. Not as a means of domination or winning but as an offer from God to step into abundant life!

I think those filled with the Spirit will be open and even prayerful seeking this continual converting work of the Holy Spirit. We will be the ones who embrace Lent and let it teach us how to live all year long, open to God’s converting and forming work in our lives and in the lives of those we love.