Once you have said farewell to the world and to sin and have found peace with God and received 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. Think better of yourself than that. Do not 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 do not become prey to those who preach the baptism of the Spirit but who have never heard what the Spirit speaks to them personally or 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 prefer to listen to a multitude of teachers who only tickle their ears. A new convert can think that he is safe in the hands of these leaders, without realizing that these leaders are fighting, striving and contending with one another. Rather than drinking pure, undefiled milk, the new convert will instead drink of a party spirit, and as a result, he will be damaged and marred 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 protection of these leaders’ wings. Jesus did not entrust Himself to these leaders because He knew them. He knew what dwelt in men. 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 get over it. By always walking in fellowship with the Spirit, he quickly learns to find his own nourishment and strength. In this way, he will escape many things, things that he otherwise would have had to go through, things that have the potential of leading him completely away from God. A new convert needs support. That support should come from the church. That is why it is written in Acts 2:47 that the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved, or those who allowed themselves to be saved. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to offer such a church to a new convert? However, when God does something, Satan tries to imitate it, and he also tries to add new converts to the church because he knows they need support. After every revival, there are plenty of “spiritual sharks” who try to draw new converts to their assembly, which of course they claim is the only right assembly. If they are able to capture a soul, they make him a spiritual corpse in an amazingly short time. If you are a new convert, you should be aware that people who are filled with this party spirit will zealously seek you out wherever you are, and they will take advantage of your ignorance. So 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 and not be taken captive. “Come to our fellowship. You can be a worker here. Here you will be safe. Here we have the right doctrine according to God’s Word.” A convert will hear these things again and again. If he allows himself to be enticed, he will sit there like a recruit, a newcomer. He will have to obey the chairman, the assistant chairman, the board of directors and many other elders who demand that the new convert show them respect and reverence. The new convert, who once felt so close to God, now feels that God is so far away. He sees God and perfection entirely through this staff of people whom he esteems and is trained to esteem as far more spiritual than he is. That is why God is so far away. He entrusts the condition of his soul to these leaders, and the result is that he is ruined. He has become a slave. He has let himself be taken captive, and he has lost that simple, spontaneous confidence in God. Now he has to ask for counsel from men. Who are these chairmen, vice-chairmen and directors to whom he has given power over his own soul? If you have received a little of the eye salve which God uses to anoint the eyes of His servants, you will see that those who are most highly esteemed according to the flesh take these positions of honor. Rev. 3:18. Those who are less esteemed only have one prospect: to remain lowly, rank-and-file members all the days of their life. The new convert now begins to entrust his soul to those who are highly regarded according to the flesh. Jesus had no appearance that made people desire Him, and now the new convert loses his desire for Him also. He has become a captive of Satan because he has esteemed 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, and as a result there are many people he feels obligated to please. This new environment is comfortable for the convert, according to the flesh, but he has become a slave, a captive according to the spirit. Before he was allowed into their fellowship, the elders and members of this church did not regard him as one who belonged to their inner circle. Now they give him the right hand of fellowship. The new convert feels uplifted, and he dreams that this pleasure will continue. After some time has passed, he even imagines that they might vote for him when the new board is elected, because several people have already noticed that he has talents that should not be buried in the ground. What an honor to be a member of the board! However, intimate fellowship with God has disappeared because he allowed himself to be overcome, to be taken captive by men who themselves are deceived by Satan. If he now determines to fight his way out of this condition into full liberty, 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 again become powerless, and they will say that he is “good.” But if his longing for the truth is still so strong that he continues to resist, the leaders will no longer be able to control him. These same people who a short time before gave him the right hand of fellowship now begin to utilize methods 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 holiest of holies. New convert, if you want to be preserved, learn to think for yourself. If you allow other people to think for you, it will cost you dearly. Let us go out to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. Heb. 13:13. Inside the camp, those who are bound nurture their bonds and regard everyone who would free them from those bonds as enemies. But it is written in Proverbs 21:16 that the person who strays from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead. Resting in the assembly of the dead is a very dangerous rest! Avoid that rest, new convert, and be diligent to enter into the rest of God, which is only obtained by faith. Heb. 4:11. There is one body (the church) and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, the Father of all. Eph. 4:4-6. Let us give all diligence to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Verse 3. We are baptized with one Spirit to be 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 responsible 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 have no need of any other fellowship in that one body, the one church. May God in His grace lead new converts in complete liberty to a deeper rest and a more complete understanding. For you are called to liberty, brethren, only do not use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.Johan O. Smith

The Spirit’s work in us is not to accomplish great deeds, but rather to carry out an individual matter. His goal is that we faithfully accomplish the work that is at hand. When the Spirit leads us to start something, He will also lead us to finish it. The Spirit leads us according to God’s plans, which do not sway back and forth in uncertainty. His plans, words, and thoughts are the law according to which the Spirit leads us. The person who is fully led by the power of the Spirit will absorb in himself God’s clear thoughts and plans, and he will proceed with his actions from the beginning until it is carried out to perfection, so that it can be said that God commanded, and now it exists because of Him, according to God’s Word. This is really what it means to build with gold, silver, and precious stones. Each one must take heed how he builds on it. 1 Cor. 3:10-15. Self-love, adorned as godliness, develops many great ideas about what needs to be done for God’s kingdom; it wants to build expansively. Great ideas require much room, which will usually result in a name and a place of renown for the person who has them. Wood, hay, and straw always build great, high, and wide; yet it is better to pass through this world unknown with a speck of gold that will endure the fire on the day of testing than to drag along large piles of wood, hay, and straw for people to admire—but to his own dismay when the fire will one day consume his work. In spite of an apparent cleverness in the work, it will become evident in the end that it was the muddled product of a deceived mind. At first we see only a small beginning of God’s great thoughts and ideas. A mustard seed! But by faithfully following the working of the Spirit, we will discover God’s treasures revealed more and more in His thoughts and in His love. Let us therefore strive to present ourselves to obedience, to carry out each simple task. Many people grow weary after they have taken their first steps, for to follow God’s ways on this earth requires that we die to our own flesh. God always takes this into account. The working of the Spirit always goes in that direction, therefore many people give up in order to follow their own ideas, to work “independently” for God, because then their self-life avoids having to die—and yet they have this consolation that they have done something. Likewise, when the Spirit leads us into prayer, He will lead us in a certain direction. That prayer is not wavering and vague as if it were the product of pious, indeterminate wishes that proceed from the person himself. God will prepare a certain task for you when you pray. The Spirit will work in you to pray until you have prayed through to victory. Let it not just be a short, pious, wishful prayer. When the Spirit leads you, you will prayerfully follow the effects of your prayer in each individual case until you see the entire answer to your prayer emerging. When you thus pray in and during the entire period of expectation, you will see that your strength in prayer will increase, and the desire for an answer to prayer will grow more and more. As these things increase, you will also press in closer to God. Thus prayer for one particular thing has a two-fold effect: that you receive what you pray for, and that you are growing in God. When you pray much for a single thing, this prayer will become so strong in you that it will become a necessity of life for you to see it answered. Many people forget right away what they have prayed for. It is better just to pray for one thing and pray your way through until your prayer has been answered than to pray for many vague things without expecting them to be answered. An answer to prayer increases faith, so that you have boldness even to pray right through to victory. Learn from Elijah. 1 Kings 18:41-45. He bowed down to the ground on Mount Carmel and put his face between his knees and prayed for rain. Then he said to his servant: “Go up now, look toward the sea.” He went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” Seven times he said, “Go again.” The seventh time he said, “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” Elijah prayed in faith and looked forward to his prayer being answered. Even though the answer did not come right away, he continued by constantly looking for the answer. It came as a small cloud. Perhaps the answer to your prayer will come in the same way—as a small cloud, as a small spark, as a mustard seed. It is God’s blessing that is on the way. It is hope. Pray right through. Water the mustard seed with your tears; let your prayers, so to speak, make a way for God’s blessings; pray through until the goal has been reached. Then you will notice that prayer will flow over into thanksgiving to Him who is faithful. Then God’s name will be glorified. Always follow the working of the Spirit right to the goal in each individual thing. Then the singleness of purpose that is in the Spirit will also become yours. You will become grounded in God’s thoughts and in His ways.Aksel Smith