August 28, 2022 - INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE HEART

By Doug Bennyson

Being converted!?

Coming from India I realized that this is a strong word in our culture. It is a volatile word in any country. It somehow carries a connotation of being forced by someone to accept something. The “something” in most of the cases is religion.

I remember a time in my life when I really had a deep passion and a desire for people to be converted into Christianity. I did not want to force them, but I desperately wanted them to know the love of Jesus. I still do. I really want people who have never tasted the love of God to experience Him. I don’t deem myself as an extremist, but I really want the world to know about Jesus.

I and my wife were having a family prayer time the other night and we were meditating on the passage of Psalm 51 where the very famous words of David were highlighted from v10 to v12, “Create in me a clean heart, God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.”(NASB). Being someone who enjoys worship music, I have heard these lines a million times as its part of a very famous song. But this time this was different! I will dive into this at the end.

In this passage, we see David asking God to “renew a ‘steadfast’ spirit”. The word ‘steadfast’ means ‘resolutely and dutifully firm and unwavering’. He later reemphasizes this by saying “and sustains me with a ‘willing’ spirit”. He is asking God to help him (David) be faithful and willing with his walk. In a world that is so challenging right now do we ask or dare I say beg God of this? To bless us with a spirit that is faithful and willing to Him? In the time of trouble, pain, confusion do we ask God to help us be steadfast?

And this is how the scripture follows along in v13, “Then I will teach wrongdoers Your ways, and sinners will be ‘converted’ to You.” God uses many avenues to change people's hearts, but if we want to be used by God to draw people's attention to God then we ought to pray for a “steadfast” spirit within us that can help us weather the storms and challenges of our life. And everything is tied to the Holy Spirit who is our helper who will help us attain this. Without the Holy Spirit, life and its purpose are lost.

So, I urge you my fellow believers, let’s seek God’s face and ask Him to help us be faithful to Him. This is a response that needs to come from us and is very pivotal for our walk with Christ. We need to change ourselves and be obedient to God in order to go out and tell the world about the Love of Jesus, so that they would repent and turn to our Heavenly Father!