Advice and Tips for New Converts

If you have said farewell to sin and the world and have found peace with God in a good conscience, then continue to walk with your God just as you received Him. Do not blindly throw yourself into the arms of some religious group. Don’t stoop to such a level. Don’t become prey for people who only preach about the baptism of water but who long ago broke their own covenant of a good conscience. And don’t become prey to those who preach the baptism of the Spirit but who have never heard what the Spirit speaks within them and what it speaks to the church. We are living in a time when Christians say that they have become rich, are wealthy, and have need of nothing, a time when people heap up for themselves teachers because they have itching ears. A new convert can think that he is safe in the hands of one of these many leaders without realizing that these leaders are living in a state of war and division among themselves. Rather than being given pure, undefiled milk, the new convert will instead drink of a party spirit and, as a result, will experience a setback right from the beginning of his spiritual walk. He will be robbed of the childlike faith he had in Christ before he came under the protective wings of these leaders.

Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men and knew what was in man. John 2:24-25. To follow Jesus here can be a hard pill to swallow for a new convert. However, once he begins to receive understanding of what dwells in man, he will come through it. By always walking in the fellowship of the Spirit, he will quickly learn to find his own nourishment and strength. In this way, he will be preserved from many things, things that he otherwise would have had to go through, things which potentially could lead him completely away from God.

A new convert needs support, and this support should be the church. That is why it is written in Acts 2:47, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” How blessed it would be to be able to invite new converts to such a church. However, whatever God does, Satan tries to copy; he also tries to add new converts to the church, because he knows they will have a need for support. After every revival, there is a frenzy of “spiritual sharks” trying to draw new converts into their own assembly, which is the only right one. If they are able to capture a soul, they turn him into a spiritual corpse in a surprisingly short time.

If you are a new convert, you should be aware that people who are filled with this party spirit will zealously court you wherever you are, and they will take advantage of your ignorance. You will need to be extremely God-fearing and listen carefully for the voice of the Spirit, so that you can be kept pure and free in your spirit—without being taken captive.

“Join our fellowship. You can be a worker here. Here you will be safe. Here we have the right doctrine according to God’s word,” etc. Such words will echo in a new convert’s ears. If he allows himself to be enticed, he will end up sitting there like a new recruit, a novice. He will have to obey the chairman, the vice-chairman, the board of directors, and a whole lot of other elders who demand that the new convert show them all due respect and reverence. The new convert, who previously felt that God was so close at hand, now finds that He is so far away that he can hardly get a glimpse of Him. He sees God and perfection entirely through this team of people whom he esteems. He has been trained to look up to them as being far more spiritual than he is. In this way, God becomes very far removed. The new convert entrusts the state of his soul to these guiding forces, and as a result he comes into bondage. He has become a slave. He has let himself be taken captive. He has lost his simple, open, childlike confidence in God and now has to ask people for counsel.

Who are these chairmen, vice-chairmen, and directors to whom this new convert has given power over his own soul?

If you have received a little of the eye salve with which God anoints the eyes of His servants (Rev. 3:18), you will see that it is those who are most highly esteemed according to the flesh who occupy positions of honor. Those who are less esteemed only have the prospect of remaining rank-and-file members for the rest of their lives. So now the new convert entrusts his soul to those who are esteemed according to the flesh. Jesus had no form or comeliness that people should desire Him, and now the new convert loses his desire for Him as well. He has been taken captive by Satan so that he looks up to people according to the flesh. He no longer lives as one who knows no man according to the flesh. On the contrary, he has become a debtor to the flesh since he has so many people to please.

These new surroundings are comfortable for a new convert, according to the flesh, but he has become a slave, a captive according to the spirit. Before the convert was admitted into “their fellowship,” the elders and members of this church did not regard him as their “initiate,” but now they offer him the right hand of fellowship. The new convert feels uplifted and dreams that this joyful bliss will continue. After some time has passed, he even has the chance to be voted for when new board members are elected, because several people have already noticed that he has talents that should not be buried in the ground. What an honor to be part of the leadership! However, his intimate fellowship with God is gone, because he allowed himself to be overcome, to be taken captive by men who themselves are deceived by Satan.

Now if he wants to fight his way out of this state and return to full freedom, he will be regarded as a revolutionary, an uncontrollable member who is not as humble as he should be and who therefore must be corrected and rebuked by the elders. If he capitulates to these corrections, he will once again become powerless, and they will say that he is now “well-behaved.” But if his longing for the truth is still so strong that he continues to resist, they will no longer be able to control him within their community. These same leaders, who a short time before gave him the right hand of fellowship, now invoke the process that the Savior, in His prophetic vision, predicted when He said that they will “put you out of the synagogues.” John 16:2. He has trodden down their high places and passed judgment in their most holy place.

If you, as a new convert, want to be preserved, then learn to think for yourself. If you allow others to think for you, that will cost you dearly. Let us go out to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach (Heb. 13:13), because inside the camp, those who themselves are bound embrace their bonds and regard everyone who would free them as enemies. “A man who wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead.” Prov. 21:16. Resting in the assembly of the dead is a dangerous rest! You who are newly converted, you must shun that rest and be diligent to enter into the rest of God, which is only obtained by faith. Heb. 4:11.

“There is one body [i.e., the church] and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all . . . .” Eph. 4:4-6. Let us be diligent in all things to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Verse 3. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—one church. God has not ordained any other church. There is only one baptism, one burial with Christ. This is the covenant of a good conscience that upright people make with their God: to walk in the newness of life and keep a good conscience. When we do that, we walk in the light, and then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. We need no other kind of fellowship in that one body, in the one church.

May God in His grace lead new converts into a deeper rest in full freedom and a more complete understanding. “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh . . . .”