3 CHRISTIAN LEADERS WHO DISCOVERED THEY HAD NEVER BEEN CONVERTED TO CHRIST

          

A “nominal” Christian is a Christian in name only. They may be very "religious" but their faith is centered, not in Christ, but in the church to which they belong. Their faith is in the external programs and duties of church, rather than in Christ Himself.

The following are three examples of Christian leaders who came to the stunning conclusion that they had never been truly converted to Christ. Their discovery not only transformed their lives but resulted in them becoming instruments for igniting revival and reform movements that changed the course of history.

The Conversion of John Wesley

“I who went to America to convert the Indians had never been converted myself,” wrote the Rev. John Wesley, a baptized, confirmed and ordained clergyman in the Church of England. He came to this stunning conclusion after a failed mission to George to convert the American Indians. His ineffectiveness and the spiritual emptiness in his soul caused hm to question his own faith.

He came to the shocking conclusion that he had never been truly converted to Christ. He realized that he had put his trust in the externals of Christianity but had never been truly born again through faith in Jesus alone.

It all came to a climax as he sat in a meeting in London where Martin Luther’s "Preface to the Book of Romans" was being read. Luther, of course, emphasized salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. As Wesley listened to how Luther described the change that takes place in a person’s heart when they put their faith in Christ alone, something marvelous happened. He later wrote,

I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sin, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Wesley always considered this the time of his conversion and he was never the same. He began to preach Christ with a new sense of power and urgency. When the Anglican churches closed their doors to him because of his message that church membership will not save you, he took his Christ-centered message to the streets and the open fields.

Everywhere he went, thousands gathered to hear him, and great revival swept across the land. This Methodist revival transformed the UK. It jumped the Atlantic and had a powerful impact in the American colonies and on the founding of America. The church and the world would never be the same after John Wesley’s “warmed heart.”

Martin Luther’s Conversion

Like Wesley, Martin Luther was a baptized, confirmed and ordained priest, but in the Roman Catholic Church. But despite all his religious connections, he had no peace in his heart toward God nor any assurance that he was accepted by God. He wrestled with this in prayer and finally come to the conclusion that he had never been truly converted.

The answer for Luther came while teaching the NT books of Romans and Galatians at the University of Wittenberg where he was a professor of Bible and theology. These letters of Paul clearly delineate that it is only through faith in Jesus Christ, and Him alone, that our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to God.

When this truth of faith in Christ dawned on Luther’s soul, he wrote, “I felt that the gates of heaven were opened and that I had been born again.” This truth was so real to him that he began to boldly proclaim it and even challenged the pope to begin preaching faith in Jesus Christ alone as the way to heaven. He wrote,

Therefore, no one is obliged to obey the ordinances of the pope, or required to listen to him, except when he teaches the gospel and Christ. And the pope should teach nothing but faith without any restrictions (Hyatt, Apostolic Leadership, 18).

His message that we are saved by faith in Christ alone did not sit well with the Roman Church hierarchy and he was eventually excommunicated. But his discovery that the externals of “church” will not save and that only faith in Christ reconciles us to God, ignited the Protestant Reformation and its sound is still reverberating throughout the church and world today.

The Conversion of Pandita Ramabai

Although of a different time and culture, Pandita Ramabai’s story of conversion is very similar to that of Wesley and Luther. Pandita (1858-1920) was born into a devout Hindu home in India and was taught Sanskrit by her father who was a preacher of Hinduism.

While studying in England, Pandita decided to become a Christian. She joined the Church of England, was baptized and confirmed and began to diligently study her new religion. She also returned to India and founded a home for widows and orphan girls, which she called Mukti Mission.

She continued to diligently read and study her Bible and after eight years came to the realization that she had merely “changed religions.” In her words, she had accepted the Christian religion, “but not Christ Himself.”

She bowed before the Lord, gave her life completely to Him and put her faith in Christ alone for her salvation. Everything changed. Christianity was no longer a religion, but a relationship with the Almighty through faith in Jesus Christ. She now experienced a passion and power in her Christian walk that she had not previously known.

She began a prayer meeting at Mukti Mission and announced that the purpose of the prayer meeting was to pray for the conversion, not of the Hindus and Muslims, but of the Christians of India. She realized that so many were "nominal" Christians as she had been, having the Christian religion but not Christ Himself.

Out of this prayer meeting came a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Regular school classes for the young girls were interrupted by extended times of prayer, weeping, and joyous praises to God.

Many of the young girls were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues like the early Christians in the Book of Acts. The American missionary, Albert Norris, visited the revival and was astounded to hear a young illiterate Indian woman praising God in English, “idiomatically, distinctly and fluently” (Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity, 154).  

Many of the young girls were so overwhelmed with the love and power of God that they began going out into the surrounding villages and preaching the Gospel to the villagers.

This revival had ripples of effect throughout India and in other parts of the world. Pandita became known as the “Mother of the Pentecostal Movement in India” and because of her social work lifting the status of women and girls, the Indian government issued a postage stamp in her honor in 1980, containing her name and photo.

The Conclusion of the Matter

The Church is the community of faith--the gathering of those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. It is never the object of faith. Too many churches have been turned into stained-glass idols. This happens when the church itself becomes the object of faith. People are made to think that they are OK with God and their ticket to heaven is punched simply because they have become a member of that church.

That was the mistake of Wesley, Luther, and Ramabai, and is the mistake of millions today. Those three still valued church but now saw church in its proper role. They came to realize that church is not the end and goal. The church is an instrument for calling the masses to Jesus Christ who is the ultimate end and goal of everything. C.S. Lewis nailed it when he wrote,

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men to Christ, to make them little christs. If they are doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time (Hyatt, Apostolic Leadership, 141).

May we see another great Jesus Awakening sweep across America, Canada, Ireland, Mexico and around the world.

Dr, Eddie Hyatt has been in the ministry, along with his wife, Dr. Susan Hyatt, for over 50 years, Their books are available on Amazon and their website bookstore at https://eddiehyatt.com.