I still remember the question that haunted me for years: “When did you become a Christian?”
It was a fair question. I’d been baptized as an infant. Raised in the church. Attended Sunday school faithfully. Knew my Bible stories. Could recite the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer from memory. I’d even felt God’s presence at various times in my life, moments of conviction, seasons of seeking, flickers of something real.
But when did I actually become a Christian? Was there a moment? Or was it more like… growing up in the faith? And if I couldn’t point to a specific time and place, did that mean something was wrong?
Maybe you’ve wrestled with the same question. Or perhaps you’re on the other side of it, you can name the day, the hour, even the minute when everything changed. But now, years later, you wonder: If that was real, why doesn’t it feel as dramatic anymore? Why has the Christian life become less crisis and more… ordinary?
The truth is, genuine conversion to Christ is both a crisis and a process. It’s a decisive turning, a definitive moment when we move from death to life, from darkness to light. And it’s also a lifelong journey, a continual transformation as grace works its way deeper into every corner of our heart’s and lives.
Getting this balance right matters more than you might think. Misunderstand conversion as only crisis, and you’ll spend your life chasing emotional experiences, wondering why the mountaintop doesn’t last. Misunderstand it as only process, and you’ll never quite know if you’ve actually been born again, or if you’re just trying really hard to be a better person.
Scripture holds both truths together. And so did two men whose wisdom has shaped my understanding of what it means to truly turn to Christ: John Wesley and Richard Baxter.
The Turning Point
Let me take you to London, May 24, 1738. John Wesley, age 34, is a priest in the Church of England. He’s recently returned from a failed missionary journey to Georgia, questioning everything he thought he knew about faith. He’s been talking with Moravian Christians who seem to have something he lacks, an assurance, a peace, a confidence in Christ that he desperately wants but doesn’t possess.
That evening, Wesley went “very unwillingly” to a meeting on Aldersgate Street, where someone was reading Martin Luther’s preface to Romans. Here’s what he wrote in his journal:
“About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Notice that word: change. God works a change in the heart. This wasn’t just Wesley gaining new information or deciding to try harder. Something happened to him. God did something in him. His heart, which had been cold, anxious, seeking, was warmed. Trust was born. Assurance was given. This was conversion.
Just three days earlier, Wesley’s brother Charles had experienced the same breakthrough. Lying sick in bed, Charles suddenly felt “a strange palpitation of heart” and cried out, “I believe, I believe!” He wrote, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ.”
For both Wesley brothers, conversion was a crisis, a turning point, a before-and-after moment. They could point to it. They could date it. Their lives were divided into “before Aldersgate” and “after Aldersgate.”
This is what Scripture describes. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). There is a decisive break with the old life and an entrance into the new. This is conversion.
Examining the Heart
But here’s where it gets pastoral, where theory meets real people in real confusion. Richard Baxter spent seventeen years in Kidderminster, England, shepherding a parish of some 800 families. And one of his primary concerns was helping people understand whether they’d truly been converted or were just going through religious motions.
Baxter called it “heart work,” examining the affections to determine if genuine spiritual life had taken root. He knew that external religion was easy. Attending church, saying prayers, even weeping during a sermon, none of these guaranteed that the heart had actually been changed by God’s grace.
So Baxter asked probing questions:
- Are your desires new? What do you long for now that you didn’t long for before?
- Are your motives transformed? Why do you do what you do? Is it for God’s glory or your own?
- Are your affections reordered? Do you love what God loves and hate what God hates?
- Has everything become new, as Scripture promises?
In his Christian Directory, Baxter wrote that consideration – deep, sustained reflection on spiritual truth – is what “opens the door between the head and the heart.” Knowledge alone isn’t enough. Even correct doctrine isn’t enough if it remains in the intellect. True conversion happens when truth moves from the head to the heart, when the understanding kindles the affections, when what we know reshapes what we love.
Baxter’s pastoral wisdom was this: you can recognize genuine conversion by its fruit. Not immediately, no one expects an oak tree on day one. But over time, truly converted people display certain marks:
- They mourn over their sin, not just its consequences
- They hunger for God, not just God’s gifts
- They grow in holiness, however slowly
- They persevere through trials rather than abandoning the faith when things get hard
This is why Baxter spent so much time in personal visitation, sitting with families, asking questions, probing gently to discern the state of each person’s soul. He knew that masses of people could claim conversion without ever experiencing it. And he knew that some genuinely converted people doubted their salvation because they misunderstood what conversion actually produces.
Conversion as Process
But here’s what both Wesley and Baxter understood: conversion isn’t the end of the story. It’s the beginning.
Even after Aldersgate, Wesley continued to grow, to be sanctified, to press deeper into God’s grace. In his sermon “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” preached years later, Wesley explained that justification by faith (what happened at Aldersgate) marks the start of sanctification, the lifelong process by which God makes us holy.
Jesus prayed: “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). This was Jesus’s prayer for his disciples. Notice the verb: sanctify. Present tense. Ongoing. Not “sanctified them once and done,” but “sanctify them,” keep working, keep transforming, keep making them holy.
This is why Wesley organized Methodism the way he did. The class meetings, the bands, the societies—all of these were structures designed to help believers grow after conversion. He knew that people needed more than a one-time experience. They needed sustained formation, accountability, teaching, encouragement, and discipline to press on toward maturity in Christ.
Baxter understood this too. In The Reformed Pastor, he insisted that the minister’s work is ongoing care of souls, not just preaching for conversion on Sunday, but personal oversight throughout the week, catechizing families, instructing believers, helping them apply Scripture to their daily lives.
Both men rejected the idea that you could be converted and then just… coast. No. Conversion begins a journey. A long obedience in the same direction. A pilgrimage that lasts a lifetime.
Paul put it this way: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). Notice both parts: you work out what God is working in. The crisis of conversion (God’s work in you) leads to the process of discipleship (your working out what he’s worked in).
Why Both Matter
So which is it? Crisis or process?
Yes.
Christianity is practical because Christianity is true. And the truth is that God both saves us decisively at a point in time and transforms us progressively over a lifetime.
If you emphasize only the crisis, you’ll produce Christians who:
- Chase emotional experiences because they think that’s what faith is
- Doubt their salvation every time they sin or feel distant from God
- Never mature because they keep trying to “get saved” again and again
If you emphasize only the process, you’ll produce Christians who:
- Never have assurance because they’re always measuring their progress
- Trust their own efforts more than Christ’s finished work
- Burn out trying to become righteous instead of resting in grace
We need both. The crisis reminds us that salvation is God’s work, not ours. We don’t save ourselves. We don’t gradually improve until we’re good enough for God to accept us. No, he changes us, births us anew, makes us alive when we were dead. That’s conversion.
The process reminds us that the Christian life is real life, not a single moment frozen in time. Yes, something decisive happened at conversion. But now we live it out. We grow. We stumble and get back up. We press forward. We’re being sanctified, made holy, day by day, through Scripture and prayer, through suffering and service, through the ordinary faithfulness of following Jesus in all the mundane and magnificent moments of life.
Where Are You?
So let me bring this home with the same pastoral care that Baxter and Wesley would bring.
If you’ve never experienced the crisis of conversion:
Don’t settle for religious activity without spiritual life. Attending church, praying prayers, doing good works, none of these save you. You must be born again. You must come to Christ in repentance and faith, trusting him alone for salvation, receiving the assurance that your sins are forgiven not because you’re good enough but because he is gracious enough.
Ask yourself Baxter’s questions: Are my desires new? Do I love Christ? Is my heart being changed? If you can’t answer yes, don’t delay. Turn to Christ today. Trust him. Call out to him. He will not turn you away.
If you’re uncertain whether you’ve truly been converted:
Take comfort in this: God is patient with honest seekers. Wesley himself struggled for years before Aldersgate. What matters isn’t whether you can name the exact moment, but whether the fruit of conversion is present in your life. Do you trust Christ? Do you long for holiness? Do you grieve over sin? Are you growing, however slowly? These are marks of genuine faith.
Baxter would say: don’t be content with doubt, but also don’t despair. Examine your heart honestly. Search the Scriptures. Pray for clarity. Seek wise counsel. And keep pressing forward in faith, trusting that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6).
If you know you’ve been converted but feel stuck:
Remember that conversion is both crisis and process. You were saved decisively. But you’re being saved progressively. This is normal. This is right. Don’t despise the slow work of sanctification. Don’t chase the emotional high of conversion as if faith is always supposed to feel dramatic.
Instead, commit to the long obedience. Pursue the means of grace: Scripture, prayer, fellowship, accountability. Persevere through the dry seasons. Trust that God is at work even when you don’t feel it. The same grace that saved you is still sustaining you.
The Goal
Here’s what Wesley and Baxter both understood: the goal of conversion isn’t just getting to Heaven someday. The goal is being made holy now, transformed into the image of Christ, living under his lordship in every sphere of life, bearing fruit that glorifies God and serves our neighbor.
This is Practical Christianity. It starts with the crisis of conversion, that definitive moment when God births us anew by his Spirit. And it continues through the process of sanctification, that lifelong journey in which we’re being conformed to Christ.
Both matter. Both are real. Both are necessary.
Have you been born again? And if so, are you growing up in Christ?
Reflect
- Head: Can I identify a time when I truly turned to Christ in repentance and faith? If not, what’s holding me back from that decisive commitment? If so, what evidence of genuine conversion do I see in my life?
- Heart: When I examine my affections, what I love, what I desire, what I pursue, do I see the marks of a new heart? Where do I see growth, and where do I see areas that still need transformation?
- Hands: What is one specific way I can pursue the ongoing process of sanctification this week? What means of grace (Scripture, prayer, fellowship) do I need to engage more faithfully?
This Week
Practice the Morning Examination
Each morning this week, before you begin your day, take two minutes for this simple practice:
Prayer of Consecration: “Lord Jesus, you have saved me by grace through faith. Today, continue your work of sanctification in me. Show me where I need to grow. Give me grace to walk in obedience. I am yours.”
Baxter’s Question: Ask yourself one of his probing questions, rotate through them each day:
- Monday: Are my desires new? What do I long for today?
- Tuesday: Are my motives pure? Why am I doing what I’m planning to do?
- Wednesday: Are my affections rightly ordered? What do I love most right now?
- Thursday: Is there evidence of spiritual life in me? Where am I seeing fruit?
- Friday: Am I growing, even slowly? What has changed in me recently?
Write down brief, honest answers. At the end of the week, look back and see what patterns emerge.
Read One Account of Conversion
This week, read one of these passages slowly and prayerfully:
- John Wesley’s journal entry for May 24, 1738 (available online at Wesley Center or CCEL)
- Paul’s conversion in Acts 9:1-19
- Your own conversion story: write it down if you’ve never done so
Ask God to renew in you the wonder of what he’s done and is doing.
Closing Prayer
Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Thank you for the decisive work of conversion, for birthing us anew by your Spirit, for justifying us by faith in Christ alone, for giving us assurance that we belong to you. And thank you for the patient work of sanctification, for not leaving us as you found us, for transforming us day by day into the image of your Son. Give us grace to know the crisis of your saving work, and grace to endure the process of your sanctifying work. Help us neither to despair of our salvation nor to presume upon your grace, but to walk humbly, faithfully, and joyfully in the path you’ve set before us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Remember…
Christianity is practical because Christianity is true.
Christianity is practical because Christianity works.
Christianity is practical because Christianity was meant to be put into practice.
Soli Deo Gloria
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