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In the days of Jesus, when many people started following Him, He was not impressed because He knew that many of them were only after getting earthly blessings from Him (Jn.6:26). To such people He said that only when they started doing what He taught them would they truly become His disciples (Jn.8:31). He also described two types of foundations. The difference was not that only one heard the Gospel and followed Him. Both heard the Gospel, but only one acted upon what they heard from Him (Mt.7:24-27).

Even now many assume that they are believers in Jesus, and some say they are His followers. These people have distinguished themselves from others in some form so as to believe that now they belong to Jesus. Some of them believe that Jesus died and rose again from the dead, and so they have accepted Him as the true Son of God. Some have accepted that Jesus has died for their sins and accepted Him as their Saviour for the forgiveness of their sins. Some others have come to believe in Jesus because they have experienced, or they have seen or heard about miracles He has done for other people. In some sense, they all have 'accepted' Jesus.

But it is possible that many of these people have not experienced true conversion to Jesus. Some may have been drawn to Jesus in different ways, but it is possible that their conversion is not really complete.

Jesus has come to save us from our sins (Mt.1:21). His name itself means 'Yahweh saves'. The message He preached was that people should repent from their sins and enter the kingdom of God (Mk.1:15). The apostles preached clearly that people should turn from their sins to God (Ac.26:18). Unfortunately, this message is preached only rarely by modern preachers. The so-called gospel we hear nowadays is that if we go to Jesus, He will heal us, solve all our problems, and take care of us. As a result, even many of those who have come to Jesus have not repented and turned from their sins. Their conversion is, in many cases invalid, and in many other cases incomplete.

When we get to 'see' God in His holiness, we will become aware of how sinful we are, and how many sins we have committed. That is when we see that we cannot save ourselves and we need a Saviour. Then we are relieved to accept Jesus as our Saviour. Then we are willing to give up all our sinful ways and subject ourselves to Jesus. One test we can apply to ourselves to see if we have truly come to experience this conversion is to ask, "Have I made a decision to say to God, 'Not my will but Yours, Lord,' in every part of my life?" If we know who God is, and who we are in front of Him, and still imagine that we have the option to do whatever we like, really we are not believers, followers, or disciples. Then our conversion is imaginary, false or nominal. If we choose Jesus as our Saviour but we are unwilling to choose Him as our Lord, our conversion is really questionable. We still have a chance to set things right.

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