19. I Am Troubled Because I Can't Give the Exact Day of My Conversion.

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 7
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That is a small thing compared with the fact that you have turned to God from your evil ways; that you have trusted Christ, and are now seeking to serve Him. It has often been remarked that Paul did not say, when writing to his son Timothy, I know when I believed, (though doubtless he did) but “I know whom I have believed.” As it has been said, “I may not know exactly when I first woke up this morning, nor what woke me up, but I know I am awake.” God wouldn’t have us to have faith in our conversion, but in Christ. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:88The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)). When the Spirit begins His gracious work in the soul, He does not occupy me with His work, but with my need of Christ’s work. I bow before God as a repentant sinner. My one burning desire is to have Christ, yet I feel so vile that I fear He will not have me. I never dream at the time that all this is the fruit of a work of grace in my soul; and I may, in my ignorance, even date my blessing from the day when I found Christ, and, trusting in His blood, found peace. In reality the work of grace began on the day when the Spirit worked in me to turn my soul to seek Him. In the parable of the prodigal son, the work began when “he came to himself” in the far country, and said, “I will arise and go to my father;” not when the father was receiving him with a kiss. It begins when soul-thirst is created, not when it is quenched.