9Marks Conference - Conversion is from God!

The last few months have been full of change and business, but the Lord has been so gracious. He is sanctifying me through the difficulties of this season, and giving me a greater affection and desire to know him. I could not be more thankful for this!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to a church leader conference in Wake Forest, NC. It is called the 9Marks conference. There, I was able to sit under some anointed teachers of Gods word. The speakers spoke on the topic of conversion. I am telling you, these talks could not have been any more timely in my life. I left this weekend encouraged, challenged, and ready to proclaim the Gospel with a renewed confidence in its power!

I plan to write more about each talk, but for now while the weekend is still fresh, I wanted to jot a few of the main "take-a-way" thoughts I left with...

The supreme motivation behind conversion is the global glory of God! (David Platt)
Ezekiel 36:22-32
It is appropriate for God to be God centered!

• Who else would you have him exalt?
• Who else is more worthy, more holy?
• God would not be God if he was not God-centered. 

I think this would be so good for many christians to ponder. God does not NEED us, he does not beg us to LOVE him or CHOOSE him. We are NOT the reason why God exists. He is infinitely holy, infinitely good, infinitely worthy... so when we SIN against this infinitely holy God, we DESERVE infinite WRATH..But praise be to God, who CHOSE to send Jesus to absorb the wrath of all mankind so those who TRUST in Christ and repent of their sins could be adopted and called a SON of God. This was none of man's doing, but ALL of God's doing. The ability to trust Christ and repent of our sins is a supernatural act of God. We would NEVER desire Christ on our own. This is CONVERSION! Notice how it has nothing to do with a sinful person deciding to follow Christ without first God giving the gift of faith! I don't know about you, but it gives me so much more confidence in the gospel message knowing that someones conversion has nothing to do with how persuasive I am, or how gifted of a speaker I am, but everything to do with God drawing his chosen people to himself. (Romans 8, Romans 9, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 3, Ezekiel 36:16-32) 

"God doesn't force people to love him, he just shows who he is..." (Matt Chandler)

"The soul when seeing what it is created for has no choice but to love Jesus..." (Matt Chandler)

So really, what it takes for someone to truly trust in Christ is for God to take the veil of off their eyes so they can see who Jesus is, and in response, they will bow down before him and surrender their lives for his glory!

This gives me such a burden to pray unceasingly for God to remove the veil and show himself to my lost family and friends. This also gives me a confidence to more boldly proclaim the gospel to them, because it is powerful!

I had a lot of other "take-a-ways" but I didn't realize I would write so much on this one, so instead of making a ridiculously long post,  I will just jot those down another time!

Praise the Lord. I can not say it enough.