When Thou Art Converted: The Watch Letter

"But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Luke 22:32

In this scripture, Jesus was talking to one of his disciples (Peter).

Many of us know that a disciple means someone who is a follower, student of, and called by Jesus. So, it may be easy to wonder: why would Jesus say to his disciple that he needed to be converted if he was already walking with him?

The answer is very timely and I am thankful to God for the reminder in this verse. I am also thankful for my sister Apostle Terah who reminded us a few services ago to reexamine the story of Peter and what caused him to fail in his faith but also what brought him back. Peter accepted the call of Christ. He worked for him, fellowshipped with him, traveled with him, prayed with him, and was instructed by him, but even in that somehow he was not fully persuaded in his heart.

In essence, it was like Jesus was saying to him, once you have fully decided in your mind/heart to serve me at all cost then you will be able to complete the work and the life I have called you to. This reminds me of what our Pastor Chief Apostle Gunn told us to study some weeks back: love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul.

To be converted means to be fully turned over or turned around from sin and the old way or to be completed transformed into something else. Think about a potter making something on his wheel. It starts as messy clay and ends up as a finely finished vessel. That is a perfect visual example of something or someone being fully converted, turned around, and transformed.

So, in Luke 22:32, Jesus was showing Peter that though he had accepted salvation and accepted the word of God, he still had not turned himself fully over to God somewhere and somehow. Jesus' message to Peter was also a warning. Because, after that moment, Peter would be tempted by Satan and he would later deny even knowing Jesus. So, indeed, there was something within Peter that was not fully converted from the old man that he was.

This scripture reminds me of how Chief Apostle Gunn and his lovely companion Apostle Felicia (my parents) have often said to us that we must be fully persuaded in our own hearts to serve God with everything. But we can't be persuaded unless we choose to be. That is why Jesus said: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. We have got to get to a place of ensuring that the whole of our lives has been converted unto living for God so that we can fully operate in the spirit and not allow our flesh to keep us from doing so.

Chief Apostle Gunn also has taught us that we must have a well-made up mind to serve God faithfully. If there is any part of us that still wants to live as the world does or do as we used to do we will have an unpersuaded heart or unconverted heart toward God. We will be able to be cast away very easily by the winds of the flesh without having a made-up mind. Another way to be fully converted is to ensure we are fully taking the teaching of the word.

The word acts just like the potter's hands because it can bend and shape us into who we were made to be. I think, in Luke 22:32, Jesus was also reminding Peter to continue to take the teaching and to learn at his feet with humility. Peter was very smart and strong-willed. He had a lot of ideas and opinions. We all do. And sometimes, without realizing it, our intelligence or desires can be holding us up from being converted in certain areas. That is why Chief Apostle Gunn says we have to also turn over our conscious, subconscious, and imagination to God so they are in subjection to his will and not our flesh. If you notice, when Jesus taught the crowds he would have the people sit down. That is a visual example of how we need to sit our ways and ourselves down and be taught. Because it strengthens us to where we have more Godly wisdom, understanding, and insight that will keep us from falling for and into temptation.

Earlier today, I was riding with one of my beautifully saved sisters, Apostle Keta, and as the strong winds blew the vehicle started moving toward the edge of the road, she also had mentioned how she needed to take the car back to the shop to have the alignment checked. But the key takeaway from the car moving like that for me was that she was attentive and fully focused at that moment so she was able to easily navigate the car back to where it needed to be and keep moving to our destination. When we are not converted and our flesh still has a say-so in how we live and respond, it is easy to veer off from where you are supposed to be and lose control, but when you have been converted and have a made-up mind like my sister, you can resist what comes and stay on track because you have been transformed by God in a way that can't be moved by the wind or forced out of alignment.

James 1:8 says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. We sing a song in our Holy Fire choir that goes: "You better make up your mind, who you're going to serve, make up your mind before you run out of time." And it ties right into what my sister Apostle Angel, a great encourager in the Lord, ministered last night during service through the preached word. She was giving us a visual example of how we can start to go forward and then go back and forth, swaying in our flesh like a yo-yo. This means we are treating God in any kind of way. We come and go as we please, we pick him up and we put him down. So, how can we move forward like that? If a vehicle continues to sway back and forth because of the wind or tire alignment issues, especially without a focused drive on the road, eventually it will crash, and that is the same for our lives. If we remain unstable, undecided, unwilling, unfocused, and unconverted, eventually we will crash.

This takes us right back to what Jesus was trying to get Peter to see in Luke 22:32. By telling Peter that he needed to be converted, even after he answered Jesus' call, the Lord was showing his disciples and showing us today that we can't just stop at saying we have given our lives to Christ or agreeing to do so, we have to go further and fully-commit our lives to Christ every day. When an athlete commits to play on a sports team, that means they forsake all other offers to go somewhere else. It means that they have tied themselves to that team. That means they are willing to convert their way of playing and their lifestyle to the requirements, philosophies, teachings, principles, and plans of that team and its leaders. If we are truly Team Jesus, we will make the same commitment.

I thank God for the lens of the word, it allows us to see the condition of our hearts and minds. And that is what Jesus was doing with Peter. He was showing him the condition of his heart and mind. He was giving him a chance to search his heart/mind and to turn over the fear, pride, self-ambition, doubt, or whatever it could have been that would cause him to later allow the devil to tempt him and cause him to deny Jesus. Thankfully, although it did take him backsliding from Jesus, Peter finally understood what it meant to be converted and found himself in full surrender to Christ, and, therefore, he did indeed strengthen the saints and the disciples and generations to come. (But it is important to note that Jesus tried all he could to prevent Peter from backsliding in the first place just like he did for Judas. It doesn't always require us backsliding and getting to our lowest point to fully surrender to Christ. We do have the opportunity to decide to surrender on our own and because we just want to.) I can see areas of my life that I need to take back before the Lord and ensure I have turned them all the way over!

Some months ago, Chief Apostle Gunn talked about how we can have divided allegiance. We are faithful to God for what he can do for us, but then we are also faithful to the world and its ways for what we think it can do for us. You can't live both ways. There is a song that says: This world has nothing for me. And that is true. There is nothing this world can do for you without God because he is the creator of everything and only good things come from him. Also, the world without God will only crash and burn. Like Apostle Angel said last night, the flesh can do nothing right. Rightness comes from God. It is time for all of us to stop prioritizing the world, ourselves, and our flesh over God and instead turn fully over to God.

In 2018, Chief Apostle Gunn broadcasted a message called "Make Me Over." In it, he talked about a vision he had about going to the potter's house. It is a place where anyone who wants to be committed to God should find themselves going. We know that God is the potter, and we are his clay. So we have the opportunity at any time to return to the potter and let him reshape and remold us to where we are wholly (and holy) dedicated to him. I don't know about you, but I am going to the potter's house in prayer to make sure I have completed every turn required on the potter's wheel (God's perfect will). I truly want to be a faithful vessel he can use and depend on.

Isaiah 64:8: But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand.

Will you be converted today? You can listen to "Make Me Over" here: https://www.thebodyofchristinc.com/listen-in?wix-music-track-id=5434266047479808&wix-music-comp-id=comp-j3hyec8g.

Love,

Apostle Kanya (and Jesus who truly is the author of this blog)