Conversion is the glorious act of God taking a soul and transforming it from the state of depravity and deadness in sins and trespasses and remaking it in His own image. The soul that has the renewed image of God is now God’s dwelling place. The dwelling place of God is not just a place that God goes on vacation, but it is the place where He manifests Himself. The regenerated human soul was created to be a dwelling place of God through which He would display Himself. The mind (soul’s capacity to understand) has been renewed so the soul may have the mind of Christ. The affections (soul’s capacity to have joy in God) have been renewed to have the affections of Christ. The will (soul’s capacity for choice) now chooses according to the understanding of Christ and what it loves the most. The whole soul is transformed in conversion and now its capacity for choice (the will) is changed.
Before conversion the soul (by the capacity of choice) chooses sin and only sin. The soul that is spiritually dead and by nature a child of wrath (Eph 2:1-3) always chooses according to its spiritually dead nature which loves self and sin. The soul that is dead in sin and by nature a child of wrath will always choose what its darkened mind sees as good and what the affections (governed by darkness) incline it toward. For a soul to be converted so that it will choose according to Christ it must have the mind and affections of Christ. The choices or will of a human being will always follow the last dictate of the understanding and of the affections. The converted soul is now the dwelling place of God and it will choose differently than another person that is not the dwelling place of God.
It is evident that a saved person is not just one that has prayed a prayer and has made a commitment to attend church and be moral. A converted person has been changed from one that lived by the lusts of the heart and mind to one that lives by the mind and affections of Christ. The moral action is not just a choice that someone makes but is a choice that comes from a humble heart (emptied of self) and comes from the life of Christ in the soul. The converted soul does not live by the life of self but by the life of Christ. What comes from the converted soul (ideally all cases, but we still have remaining sin) is what originated in heaven from the Father, comes into the soul through Christ, and is then worked into the human soul so that it is sharing in the life of God. Of course believers are not perfect, but they do have the life of Christ in them that is moving them on into spiritual growth.
Romans 8:6-8 tells us the reality of the unconverted soul: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The unconverted person is one that is ruled by the flesh which is hostility toward God, but the converted person is one that is ruled by the life of Christ which is love toward God. The unconverted soul lives in fear of the will of God and hates it when it is seen, but the converted soul prays for God’s “will to be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mat 6:10). The unconverted soul has no ability of the will to subject itself to the law of God, but the believer is in the New Covenant where God works His law in the minds and hearts of those He dwells in. Now the believer haves the ability (the life of Christ) to follow the holy law of God.
It must be stressed again and again that the converted person is not just stronger and makes better moral choices, but the converted person has the life of Christ in the soul now rather than the life of the flesh and of self that the unconverted person is enslaved to. The unconverted hates God and His law, yet the converted person has Christ in the soul who when on earth said this: “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). The Savior that said that when facing the cross on earth will indeed be working in His people to submit to the Lord’s will. But it is not some forced obedience to the law, but rather it is this: “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psa 119:97). In this we see how Christ in the soul by working out His love for the Father. Jesus fulfilled the whole Law, and since love is the fulfillment of the Law Jesus loved the Father and the Law perfectly at all times and in all ways. The converted person loves the Law and the glory of the Father shining through the Law because Christ the perfect Lawgiver and Law keeper is the life of that person’s soul.
While Jesus was on earth, He gave several sayings which shows how He works in the believer. The intent of giving these verses (given below) in the context of conversion is to point at what Christ does in the soul. He is at work in the soul working to conform it to Himself and the will of the Father.
John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
John 5:30 “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
Hebrews 10:7 “THEN I SAID, ‘BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'” 8 After saying above, “SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them” (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
When the verses (given above) are examined, we see why the will must be converted in salvation. Jesus Christ came to accomplish the work of the Father. It is Father’s will that His people be holy. He is working the will of the Father in His people and they are conformed to His image. The food which strengthened Jesus was to do the will of the Father. He did not just want to know the Father, but He wanted to do His will in all things. In fact, as John 5:30 informs us, Jesus did not do anything from His own initiative. His judgment was just because He did not seek His own will but the will of the Father. This is an amazing text which far-reaching ramifications. If we apply this passage to the life of Christ in the soul now, then we can see that it is sin to seek our own wills. But we can also see that holiness is in denying our wills and seeking the will of the Father. The whole soul must be converted in order for Christ to dwell in the soul and work the will of the Father in it. After all, Jesus did not come from Heaven to do His own will but the will of the Father. He also does not come and live in the souls of believers to do anything but work the will of the Father in them as well. Only the will of the Father is holy and should be done.
The believer wills and works for the good pleasure of God, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). It is the Father who works through Christ to work His will in believers. The prayer of the writer of Hebrews is for the Father to “equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever” (Hebrews 13:21). The believer is equipped to do the will of the Father. The unconverted soul is not equipped to do anything according to the revealed will of the Father. That takes a changed soul and that takes the life of Christ in that cleansed and changed soul.
Unconverted people do not like to hear of the sovereignty of God and thinks things are up to their wills. This is not the truth about God. “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1). Even the unbeliever’s heart is in the hands of the LORD and He turns it as He pleases. The unbeliever is not being forced to do what s/he does not want to do, but in carrying out the desires of his or her heart that unbeliever is being turned as the LORD pleases. The converted soul knows that (to some degree) and prays as Solomon did: “that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers” (1 Kings 8:58).
The New Covenant points toward all of this: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). The soul must be converted as a whole so that the will would desire to love God and keep His Law. The converted soul has the Law on its heart. The converted soul is directed by the understanding which can now receive light. The converted soul has affections of joy and delight in the Lord and in His Law. It is now wonder that the converted soul that sees the glory of God and has affections of joy in Him will choose according to the will of the Father. The converted soul now has sight to see, delight in, and then choose. The whole soul is converted and is now the dwelling place of God. The whole soul by virtue of the life of Christ in it is restrained from sin that before it could not see. The whole soul now loves God because it is now delivered from the bondage of sin and is given the love of God. Conversion is the glorious work of God by which His people become willing in the day of His power (Psa 110:3).
God Loves... Himself 
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