When did you become a Christian?

Do you have to know the date and time when you became a Christian?

Sometimes preachers or churches claim that you must know a time and a place when you accepted the Lord as your Saviour or became a Christian.

A person may even hear this and think:

If I do not know this time or place, then I must not be a Christian.

However, it is absolutely clear in the Bible that such a conclusion is false.

The main point of the gospel message is that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31), not trust our works (Romans 4:5; Ephesians 2:8-9). The Bible does NOT say:

Except you know the time and place of your conversion, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Instead, it says we must be born again which is by receiving Jesus Christ in faith (John 1:12-13; John 3:3-5).

We are not to trust a date, a time, a method, or anything else, but Jesus Christ alone! Whenever we believe, whether at a specific time or over a long period of time we are sealed with the Holy Spirit:

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13).

There are even some Christians who cannot remember a time when they did not believe. When was Samuel converted? When was John the Baptist converted? In all likelihood, it was in their mother’s womb!

If a person does not know the time and place when he or she became a Christian, it is irrelevant. The key question is:

Are you trusting in Christ alone for your salvation now? When this trust in Christ alone began is not the issue.

This, then, leads to the question: What is conversion?

There are two common traps that people fall into when trying to understand what the Bible says about Christian conversion:

1. Believing that conversion is always an instantaneous event

Here’s an interesting exercise: Read the Gospels and figure out when Peter was converted. Was it when Peter started following Jesus? Was it when he realized Jesus was the Messiah? Was it when he was sent out to preach and heal? Was it when Jesus forgave him for denying Him? It’s just not that clear-cut.

Some people do seem to have near-instantaneous conversions. You might know some of them. But such experiences are by no means universal.

2. Confusing justification with conversion.

Conversion is not simply a shift in status before God. One certainly cannot be converted without experiencing justification, but conversion is a much larger reality in which our restored relationship with God begins to touch and change every area of our lives.

Justification is not something visible. It is purely a work that God does through Jesus’ cross and resurrection whereby He imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to those who believe (Romans 4:20-25).

Defining Conversion

Conversion has been described as the response people make to the invitation, love, and work of God in Jesus Christ. It might be a very quick response, or it might occur over a longer period of time, but it is all about how people respond to Jesus.

A biblical experience of conversion includes a cluster of elements. These elements don’t necessarily occur in the same order and they are primarily internal.

They include:

Faith. A person needs to understand and agree with some basic facts about Jesus Christ. For someone without a Christian upbringing, these may be things they previously didn’t know. A person raised in a Christian family, on the other hand, might know and believe these things from infancy.
Repentance. Conversion involves more than simple agreement with facts about Jesus. It means a change of mind and of direction. Repentance is not the same as sorrow or remorse. It is a radical and unequivocal rejection of the way of sin and the pattern of life that leads to sin.
Trust and assurance of forgiveness. Responding to Jesus also touches our affections. A converted person will begin to grasp on an emotional level that God loves them and has forgiven them. This complements the more cerebral experience of faith.
Commitment, allegiance, and devotion. As we encounter and get to know the Lord Jesus Christ, we develop a determination to live for Him in the world. Following Him becomes more important than any other call on our lives.

So it is not whether we can give a date or time when we were converted that matters. What matters is whether we are trusting in Jesus Christ right now.

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