The Cost of Conversion
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Yeshua the Messiah whom You have sent.” John 17:3 (with corrections)
Know – “For just another $29,000, we anticipate 100,000 decisions for Christ,” the voice on the phone enthusiastically proclaimed. Let’s see. If I do the math quickly, that’s about thirty cents per “conversion.” What a deal! Sign me up. Who wouldn’t want to get someone else “saved” for only thirty cents? It’s a cheap ticket to heaven, that’s for sure.
Pardon my cynicism, but I don’t think this is what Yeshua had in mind at all. In fact, I’m sure that He wouldn’t stand for our program of good news commodity trading. If we understand what the word “know” really means, we should be embarrassed and ashamed at such misapplied tactics.
Undoubtedly, Yeshua used the Hebrew term yada. As you already know, it covers a very wide range of experiences, from Adam knowing Eve (intimately) to knowing the truth of the torah (both intellectually and behaviorally). The point is that the Hebrew word is far more than merely understanding certain facts. To say that Yeshua is the Messiah means absolutely nothing unless, in good Hebrew application, it is followed with a transformed life of obedience. Hearing and obeying are the same word in Hebrew. Quite frankly, getting a “decision” for Christ is fairly useless unless that begins a journey of lifelong transformation of obedience. And how is that supposed to occur when at the end of the crusade the ex-patriots go home and the “converts” are left without teaching, mentoring and reproof based on God’s instruction manual? Eternal life is not a conductor’s stamp on my ticket to heaven. It is an intimate, continual experience of the presence and character of God in the life I live right now. $29,000 worth of decisions is far less important than $29,000 for someone to stay behind as rabbi, friend and mentor. After all, the disciples were not “saved Christians” when Jesus died. Three years of tutoring left them still unconvinced. They all denied Him – until after the resurrection. Jesus used a different plan than we do. He laid a foundation of personal involvement before conversion. We seem to think that conversion must precede the foundation. We set our sights of getting the ticket punched. Only after we have secured the goal of heaven do we worry about a transformed life here and now. Jesus seems to have taken the opposite route: transformation discipleship before the experience of enlightened conversion. Go back and read the Great Commission again. You might find that the order is quite different than our way of doing things. Discipling precedes baptism, and since baptism is a sign of conversion, we see that Jesus asks us to disciple before we sell tickets to heaven.
What a shame to the gospel and to the great commission that we have converted discipling into decisions! We are responsible for a great tragedy – selling the good news – and as a result I am frightened at the possibility that Yeshua will say to us, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” It scares me to death. Yeshua addresses people who actually believed that they were doing everything right. They even had “evidence.” But they did not know Him. They knew all about Him. They knew how to run the campaigns and the programs and the products. But they forgot that even Yeshua only took on twelve in three years, not 100,000 in three days. In our efforts to fulfill our version of “to the uttermost part of the earth,” we have bypassed the obvious for the sake of mass appeal. We are selling life insurance, not transformed living. No man can come to God without first counting the cost, and by any count, the cost is very high! It is not accomplished with a twenty-word prayer or a raised hand. It is accomplished with a revolution in behavior. I simply don’t believe in easy salvation, cheap grace or gate passes to heaven. I am not impressed by the numbers. I want to see radical changes in obedience.
Of course, crusade tactics are a start. If God can use a donkey to speak the truth, I imagine that He is able to use even our worst misinterpretations. That, however, does not make us less responsible for the error. If providing a “saving knowledge” of Jesus was all that mattered, then those millions who have been touched by mass campaigns would have long ago revolutionized the nation, and the world, for God. Apparently, it didn’t work. Our nation and our world seem to be more disobedient than ever, in spite of the millions of “decisions for Christ.”
I am waiting for the day when someone calls to ask for money in order to go live where people hurt. Mother Theresa was no fool. She knew that real evangelism begins by lifting someone from the gutter and staying there to help. Even Jesus said that He came for the sick, not the psychosomatic. In the meanwhile, I hope that we will eventually get it. There’s a lot more to say here, but maybe you just caught me on a bad day.
Topical Index: Evangelism
