AFTER CONVERSION—WHAT NEXT?
By Theodore L. Cutler
Seasons of revival have been spoken of as harvest seasons. But the phrase is an erroneous and misleading one. Conversion is rather a planting time with a soul than its “harvest.” It is a beginning of better things, not a consummation completed. Those pastors and evangelists commit a fearful mistake who feel that the conversion of sinners is the one main object of all gospel effort; whereas conversion is only the means, the essential first step, to the great end of all true gospel effort, which is the service of God by a genuine godly life. Those young converts make a still worse mistake if they sit down happy and contented with having “confessed Christ” and united with his church. The clock that strikes one is expected to strike two. What is conversion? It is a turning from the wrong road into the right one. The journey is yet to be performed before Heaven is attained. Too many, alas! set out on this straight road and fall away before they reach the mark of the prize. Conversion is simply an enlisting in the army of Jesus. The battles and the hard bivouacs are yet before you. Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. We want to impress it upon the mind of every young convert that the real conflict has only begun, and they have done no more than to put on their armor and enroll their names. Supposing you to be truly regenerated by the divine Spirit, what next? We would reply that the sowing time of your spiritual spring has just begun. Don’t repeat the current prattle about being a “harvested soul gathered into the garner.” The church is not a granary. You are just beginning to sow for yourself; and whatsoever you sow you will surely reap. You are forming new habits of thinking and acting. You are an utterly inexperienced beginner in an entirely new line of life. The first year of your Christian life will have a mighty influence on all your future. Begin with a determination to learn Christ’s will and to do it. This is what that famous convert near Damascus was aiming at when he inquired so anxiously, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” It is very well to know what a Bunyan or a Finney or a Moody has written or said about the Christian life. But go to the fountain head. Go to Jesus in an humble, docile spirit, and ask him, in fervent prayer, to guide you. Bend your will to his will. He is perfectly willing to guide the meek and the teachable in the right way. I honestly believe that, when a docile heart sincerely asks to be led and then obeys the voice of conscience, that heart seldom takes a false step—yea, never does. Jesus promises to lead you in the way of all truth. Trust him. Conscience is the vital point. You need not trouble yourself much about your feelings or your frames, as long as conscience turns as steadily toward Christ as the needle toward the north pole. It is the office of conscience to detect sin and righteousness, to decide for one and to reject the other. Feelings are very fallacious. Some Christians are very devout in their feelings and wretchedly deficient in their daily conduct. They forget that the best proof of love to Christ is to keep his commandments. Fervent Christians in the prayer-meeting, they are sorry specimens of Christians outside of it. There is a lamentable lack of conscience in too much of the flaming piety which burns out all its oil in the prayer room or the “praise meeting.” We do not wonder at the sneers which are often levied by shrewd men of the world at this sort of “revival religion.” See to it that you give no occasion for such sneers. See to it that Jesus is not betrayed before his enemies by your inconsistency. The best thing you can do for your Saviour and your Master is to live an honest, truthful, pure, and godly life. Others are watching you. Then watch over yourself. In putting on your armor, don’t forget that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. Not content with merely reading your Bible, study it. Instead of skimming over whole acres of truth, put your spade into the most practical passages and dig deep. Study the twenty-fifth psalm and the twelfth chapter of Romans, as well as the sublime eighth chapter. Study the whole epistle of James. It will teach you how a Christian ought to behave before the world. As you get on further you may strike your hoe and your mattock down into the rich ore beds of the book of John. Saturate your heart with God’s word. As for your field of Christian work, you ought not to have much trouble about that. Follow God’s leadings and go into the first field of labor which he opens to you. Do not seek easy posts or those which will flatter vanity. Brave Mary Lyon used to tell her pupils at Mount Holyoke to “go where no one else was willing to go.” Threescore of her graduates became missionaries for Christ Jesus. As soon as you begin to think that you are too good for your place, then the place is too good for you. Do what you can do best. While you are working for the Master, do not neglect the inner life of your own soul. If you do not keep the fountain well filled with the love of Jesus, the stream of your activities will run dry as soon as the novelty is over. Your daily battle will be with the sins that most easily beset you. The serpent, often scotched, is not killed. Paul himself had to give his carnal appetites the “black eye” pretty often. The moment you fall asleep the Philistines will be upon you. Challenge every tempter that approaches you. The dangerous devil is the one that wears the white robe and cozens you with a smooth tongue. Finally, strive to be a Christian man everywhere. Carry the savor of your communion with Christ wherever you go. Jacob brought into his old, blind father’s presence such an odor of the barley ground and the vineyard that he had “the smell of a field which the Lord had blessed.” Every place you enter ought to be the better for your presence. Never disappoint the expectation of your Master. He is the best master in the universe. Having put on the uniform of his glorious service, wear it until you are laid in your coffin.—THEODORE L. CUTLER, D. D., in Independent.