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CONVERSION OR REBIRTH?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 12, 2026 – As many of you know, I was reborn from atheism. No-one preached to me; I didn’t struggle with giving up vices or wondering whether one doctrine was superior to another: I simply submitted to God not even knowing it was God I was submitting to, and he healed me. By “healed”, I mean he exorcised all the demons that were in me and replaced them with his Holy Spirit.
I was reborn before I knew I was reborn. I was a believer even before I knew what I believed. My belief didn’t result from indoctrination but from the sudden inrush of God’s Holy Spirit into my soul, where it’s been ever since. I was a believer the instant I was reborn; I was reborn and instantly believed. The two—rebirth and belief—are inseparable, as belief expresses the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in a soul. Without that abiding presence, there is no God-given belief, only a desire to believe or an “I think I believe” or a belief that waxes and wanes with life’s circumstances.
I mention this because the two terms “rebirth” and “conversion” are often used interchangeably, including by me. Yet what is meant by these terms can be something entirely different. Rebirth is what I touched on above, whereas conversion can mean rebirth or it can mean a change—sudden or gradual—from one state to another, from one frame of mind to another, from one lifestyle to another, without God’s violent intervention. In conversions without rebirth, alcoholics embrace sobriety, Lotharios swear off women, and party girls vow chastity, all while subsuming their newfound “righteous living” under a Christian framework. These and similar changes, though commendable, are self-imposed and self-directed rather than God-imposed and God-directed, which means they’re difficult to sustain and typically end in failure, even with ongoing support from a congregation or other helping hand.
A massive portion of the worldly church is made up of such converts. Unfortunately, they struggle with their faith as much as with their day-to-day lives. Not having God and Jesus as their counsellors, they lean on friends, mentors, spouses, colleagues, doctors, life coaches, etc., gaining a form of worldly wisdom but not the wisdom that comes from above. They share the same desires and problems as the world, and they respond to those desires and problems in the same way as the world. Eventually, usually during a crisis (like the death of a child or other major loss), some converts relapse and leave Christianity altogether.
On the other hand, some non-reborn converts harden in place and neither grow nor shrink, like the scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and Sadducees mentioned in scripture. They either build ministries themselves or become ministers and priests in established Christian strongholds, wholly devoted to their denominations and creeds rather than to God and his Word. They serve “the church” instead of serving God and approach their faith as a job rather than a relationship with God and Jesus through God’s Holy Spirit. And while they may be faithful in doing their job—some are enormously faithful in their jobs—they have little joy in the doing of it and are constantly battling temptation.
I do not mean to belittle anyone here, including myself. I’m merely pointing out the difference between conversion that results from rebirth and conversion that does not. As I mentioned at the outset, the terms “rebirth” and “conversion” are used interchangeably, which can lead to confusion. A convert who is not reborn lowers his or her chances of remaining a Christian, whereas a convert who is reborn dare not lose the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, because there’s no way to get it back, and the exit of God’s Spirit from a soul guarantees eternal damnation.
The stakes are infinitely higher for a reborn convert than for a non-reborn convert, just as life circumstances and source of belief are entirely different. At his ascension, Jesus warned his disciples not to be “witnesses” of the Gospel until they’d received God’s Holy Spirit, which they then did ten days later at Pentecost. Rebirth conversion is sudden, violent, glorious, ecstatic, and undeniably real. It also lasts a lifetime, except in very rare cases. Non-rebirth conversions are nothing like that and often end in failure or greatly diminished faith.
Rebirth is conversion, but conversion is not always rebirth. As bornagain believers, we need to be acutely aware of these differences when we interact with the worldly church and with the world.
ON FALSE CONVERSIONS AND REAL ONES
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 21, 2024 – As a born-again believer, I don’t hate lightly, but one of the few things that irk me on a visceral level (the way that Jesus was irked during his temple rampage) is false conversions. They make a mockery of the best and holiest experience on Earth, cheapening it and misrepresenting it, and in so doing blaspheming God.
Not surprising, the heaviest promoters of false conversions are the denominational churches.
I’ve written here and here (and throughout my blog) about the rebirth experience and about how you can know you’re genuinely reborn. For me, a former atheist, conversion was unsought, unexpected, instantaneous, thorough, and profound. I had zero doubt at the time that something monumental had happened to me – the fabled “sea-change” – and I’ve had zero doubt since. It’s never once occurred to me to question my rebirth.
My certainty in this regard contrasts sharply with the lingering doubts of many alleged converts, who are constantly running to their pastor or minister (or even random strangers on the internet) for assurance of their spiritual status. Unfortunately, they’re running to the wrong people, as most pastors and ministers are themselves unregenerate and therefore ignorant of what constitutes genuine rebirth. That’s not to say that those questioning their rebirth may not occasionally luck out, however, with certain random strangers on the internet, who will not hesitate to set them straight on what it means to be reborn. ;D
The Catholic church will tell you (like it told me) that you’re reborn at baptism. Well, I was one month old when I was baptised, and I can guarantee you that I wasn’t reborn at that time. Seven years later, clad in a red mini-dress and white fishnet stockings, I lined up at the front of my local Catholic church to receive first holy communion, and I can guarantee you that I wasn’t reborn at that time, either. Neither of those two “sacraments” appeared to have any positive effect on my soul. It seems that the more elaborate the ceremony, the less that actually transpires on a spiritual level.
Altar calls to “receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit” are another false declaration of rebirth. It’s disheartening how many people have been told they’re reborn simply from walking to the altar and being groped and mumbled over. Even when the alleged converts feel no different afterwards, they’re assured their salvation is a done deal and they’re on their way to Heaven. This level of spiritual fraud, if perpetrated knowingly, is a grievous sin. But most of the people misleading others are themselves misled. They simply don’t know any better and are a prime example of the blind leading the blind.
There’s no reason to be misled about what it means to be reborn because there are plenty of examples in the Bible. For instance, Jesus told Peter, “When you’re converted, strengthen your brethren”. Note that he didn’t say “If you’re converted”, he said “When you’re converted”, meaning that Jesus knew for a certainty that Peter would be converted – born again – and so he was, along with a roomful of others.
And how did that play out in real life? At a prayer session on Pentecost (ten days after Jesus’ ascension), Peter was “filled with the Holy Ghost” and immediately started preaching the Gospel boldly and in languages he hadn’t learned. He was so persuasive, that thousands of people joined the disciples, giving everything they had into the commonwealth of the group. A miraculous public healing followed soon afterwards. This caught the attention of the temple elders, who then accosted Peter and forbid him ever to preach in the name of Jesus again. Of course, the first thing Peter did upon his release was to preach in Jesus’ name, because that’s what you do when you’re reborn and ready for your spiritual close-up – you don’t shut up for anyone or anything until Jesus takes you Home.
Another scriptural example of genuine rebirth is Paul’s. On his way to Damascus to round up some of Jesus’ followers for execution, Paul saw a blinding light (so called because it actually blinded him) and then heard Jesus asking him why he was persecuting his Church. Paul then had to be led by hand to Damascus, where he cloistered himself, fasting and praying for three days and receiving visions from God. Then Ananias, being tasked by God to seek out Paul, laid his hands on him, and Paul received both his sight and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Shortly after that, he started boldly preaching the Gospel and continued to do so through hell and high water to his dying breath.
Note how these famous conversions are wildly different from each other. No two genuine rebirths are the same, because no two souls are the same. Even in mass conversions, such as the one that took place at Pentecost, rebirth will play out in different ways according to the person being reborn. Some will take time to process what happened to them and wait until their faith is stronger before being sent out by God to preach and teach the Gospel. Others might have the breadth of knowledge already but not the Spirit to inform and enliven it, so at their rebirth, they’re ready for immediate release to the public, like Peter was.
Me, I was reborn from atheism, so it took me years of learning about God and Jesus and deepening my faith in them before I was ready for public duty. I had a very steep learning curve, with lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but even in my “hidden years”, I never once doubted my rebirth. When you’re genuinely reborn, you don’t doubt it. I would sooner doubt my existence than doubt my rebirth.
Being filled with God’s Holy Spirit for the first time is the best experience a soul can have on Earth. Nothing comes close to it. It’s so amazing, you remember everything about it in minute detail as if it just happened yesterday. Your life is then divided between Before Conversion and After Conversion, you’ve changed so radically and instantaneously. Certainly, you remember your life (or what passed for a life) Before Conversion, but you don’t want to go back to it; not for a second. All you want is your After Conversion life and to live every second of it in the grace of God’s Holy Spirit.
I have it on Good Authority that the only experience that exceeds the amazingness of spiritual rebirth is a soul’s Homecoming in Heaven. I can’t imagine that level of euphoric bliss, but I hope some day to experience it for myself.
I hope you do, too.
FEAR AND TREMBLING
CHARLO, February 16, 2024 – I was born-again from atheism nearly 25 years ago. I learned about God and Jesus from God and Jesus, first by my rebirth experience itself, and then by reading scripture and deepening my relationship with God and Jesus day by day. I attended Catholic mass for the first few years of my rebirth, but it was more an exercise in attendance and calisthenics (stand up, sit down, kneel down, sit down, bow your head, cross yourself, stand up, etc.) than an education in God. I guess what I’m saying in my usual roundabout way is that my knowledge of God and Jesus comes from the source itself – God and Jesus, and their words recorded in scripture.
Having been taught about God and Jesus by God and Jesus, I find it odd when theologians and pastors argue over what God and Jesus meant when they said this or that. God is Truth and we receive God’s Spirit of Truth at rebirth, which means those who are born-again are speaking God’s language of Truth by default. I don’t argue in support of this or that point of theology or school of thought, like a sports fan raucously backing a team for no other reason than that it is his team. As a born-again believer, I support Truth and Truth only, which is neither a school of thought nor a point of theology, because Truth, as scripture assures us, is God.
I mention this as a preamble of sorts to the topic of salvation. There are several different theological points of view and schools of thought on whether or not salvation (that is, eternity in Heaven) is guaranteed for all those who believe in Jesus. But how can there be opposing points of view on Truth? The fact that there are even differing arguments on this pivotal topic is itself a giveaway to the spiritual credentials of those doing the arguing.
Truth, being God, doesn’t need to be argued. Truth only needs to be presented, and those who love Truth will recognize it and receive it as such. This process of recognizing and receiving Truth when it’s presented is one of the abiding gifts of God’s Holy Spirit in a reborn soul. Those who are not reborn don’t have that gift and so can easily be deceived.
When I heard about “once saved, always saved”, I immediately dismissed it as a lie. It’s not only non-scriptural, it’s a repackaged version of the same old nose-stretcher told to the children of Abraham back in the day. Jesus had it out quite a few times with the scribes and Pharisees, etc., about their presumption that they were indisputably Heaven-bound solely because of their genetics. He tried to correct them by presenting the Truth, but being children of the devil, they would not receive correction.
I know that when you, as a born-again believer, read these words, you’ll recognize God’s Truth in them and receive them as such. I know that you’re well aware that we’re on spiritual probation and will remain on spiritual probation right up until the end of our time here. Our salvation is not guaranteed by our rebirth. Our rebirth, being conditional, guarantees nothing; it did, however, enable us to receive God’s Holy Spirit and through the Spirit to develop a close relationship with God and Jesus and to enter into God’s Kingdom on Earth.
But our rebirth does not guarantee our salvation, any more than the state of grace we entered into at our rebirth guarantees our salvation or being in God’s Kingdom guarantees our salvation. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross paid the sin price that enabled our reconciliation with God, but our reconciliation doesn’t in and of itself guarantee our salvation. Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t guarantee salvation to someone simply for stating: “I believe”. If that were the case, even demons would be Heaven-bound, as James rightly pointed out, because demons know only too well that Jesus is the Christ.
Spiritual rebirth enables us to have a one-on-one relationship with God and Jesus. Through this relationship, we have their protection and guidance, which is worth more than all the world’s wealth combined. But even having this priceless constant protection and guidance still does not guarantee our salvation. We still have free will while we’re in the state of grace, which means we can still choose against God and Jesus.
We can still sin.
And we can still fall.
We don’t stop being tempted and tested just because we’re born-again and the apple of God’s eye. Yes, God loves us, but rules are rules and standards are standards, and we’re held to the highest of standards as God’s children. He expects the most from us, and rightly so, because he’s blessed us with so much. Jesus warned us that everything we do, every word we speak, and every thought we entertain will be judged. The devil’s taking copious notes on each of us and is planning to throw them in our face at the Judgement, pulling all stops to have us condemned. Jesus will present our defense, of course, but it will be much more than just “they believed in me”. He will have to prove by our actions, words, and thoughts that we lived our belief to the best of our ability, and that we did so to our last mortal breath. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, not in the recipe.
You, as a born-again believer, know this already. You know that you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, not with presumption, boasting, and false assurances. You know that you’re on probation and will remain on probation until the end of your time here. You know that grace is a state of being that you entered into at rebirth, courtesy of Jesus’ sacrifice. You didn’t earn grace; it was given to you. God has no interest in taking his gift back, but you still have the capacity to trash it and dump it of your own free will.
God promises he’ll never leave us or forsake us, but we can certainly leave and forsake him. God will not stop us, if we choose to go. We still have the capacity to stop following Jesus and start following Satan, like Judas did. May we never do that.
I learned about God, Jesus, and scripture from God, Jesus, and scripture, not from theologians and pastors. Being reborn and in a state of grace, I have God’s Holy Spirit of Truth in me, so I know a lie when I hear it. “Once saved, always saved” is a lie and a very dangerous one at that. It makes people spiritually lazy and proud, which is why the devil told this lie to the children of Abraham all those years ago and why he’s telling it to Christians today.
But as born-again believers, we know that as long as we have free will, we have no assurance of salvation, which means we can still sin the unforgivable sin and fall from grace. Being conscious of our vulnerability makes us careful in how we choose our words, thoughts, and actions. The more careful we are, the less ammo we give the devil for Judgement Day.
LIFE AFTER DEATH? WHAT TO SAY WHEN UNBELIEVERS DIE
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 22, 2023 – One of the most difficult and heartbreaking situations we can encounter as born-again believers is dealing with a mother whose beloved child has died of suicide. In one recent incident brought to my attention, the daughter had killed herself after years of unsuccessful attempts. The mother, in tears, wanted to know whether her daughter had made it to Heaven.
Christian tradition holds that suicides cannot be buried in hallowed ground, and so those who’d killed themselves are usually interred (if in fact they are interred) outside “official” graveyards. No funeral mass is said for them. The reason for the corpse effectively being banned from receiving Christian burial rites is that it is assumed the deceased did not make it Home.
But hold on there a second. I was born-again from atheism over 24 years ago, and I died before I was born-again. I don’t just mean I was spiritually dead; certainly, I was spiritually dead, but I was physically dead, too. I died on a deserted beach in South Australia, and in the early stages of my physical death, God came to me and made me an offer. Not in words but in a series of images, he showed me that if I chose to forgive someone I thought I could never forgive, the pain that had driven me to my death would disappear; if I chose not to forgive, the pain would not only continue but grow worse.
The pain at that point was so unbearable, I didn’t care what I had to do to make it stop, including forgiving someone I considered unforgiveable. So, wanting only for the pain to go away, I chose to forgive. As soon as I’d made my choice, God showed me that the pain I felt – the pain that had so overwhelmed me, it killed me – was nothing more and nothing less than the sum total of the pain I’d inflicted on other people throughout the course of my life. The pain I’d felt was the pain I’d earned.
When I came back to life, everything was still in deep darkness, like it was when God made me the offer. Then I heard a loud, long inrushing of wind… and I found myself lying on the beach facing the ocean. I could see nothing but sand, sea, and sky.
And all the pain was gone.
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I mention my rebirth experience here briefly because people need to know I was dead. I died an avowed atheist and came back to life a born-again believer. God came to me and made me the offer when I was dead, both spiritually and physically. I don’t know why he brought me back to life instead of leaving me to rot on the beach, but the fact remains that he did bring me back to life in every conceivable way.
If I, the miserable sinner that I was, could be forgiven my sins after physical death, it must also be possible for others to be forgiven theirs after physical death.
So this is what I would say to those who, like the tearful mother, are wondering about the spiritual fate of their loved ones who die as unbelievers. God came to me after my death and gave me one last chance to make things right. No, I hadn’t committed suicide, but I’d certainly died deep in my sins as an unbeliever and I had attempted suicide previously. I know for a fact that God can work in souls even after the body dies, because he worked in mine; I also know for a fact that bodies can be resurrected, as we know from scripture and as I know from personal experience.
A few weeks after my own rebirth and resurrection, when I was pulling out some white hairs from my head (don’t ask lol…), I discovered that the roots were brunette, which is my natural (that is, pre-white) hair color. All of the white hairs I pulled out that day were about an inch brown at the root. This should not be, but it certainly could be if a body were brought back to life through an extreme energy burst or some unknown phenomenon. Jesus mentions in scripture about God being the only one who can turn hair black (or in my case brown), and that he surely did at my resurrection. It wasn’t just a spiritual rejuvenation that happened to me on the day of my rebirth, it was a physical one, too.
Judgement is reserved for God alone. None of us knows for sure (unless God tells us) whether we’ll make it all the way Home, so we have no right assuming that other people will be condemned. God can work in the souls of sinners even after physical death, like he worked in mine, making those souls an offer and giving them one last chance, like he did for me.
I believe that as born-again believers we are here to give spiritual guidance and hope to those who are open to receiving it. It’s never wrong to give people hope. There is no such thing as “false hope”. If a grieving mother wants to know whether her suicided unbelieving daughter made it to Heaven, tell her that with God all things are possible and that conversions can happen not just on deathbeds but after death as well. God is merciful and does everything he can to bring souls Home to him, even when to others it looks like it’s “too late”.
His mercy doesn’t stop at physical death. If it did, you wouldn’t be reading this because I wouldn’t be here to write it for you.
HEALING THROUGH EXORCISM
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 4, 2023 – We are allegedly in the midst of a mental health crisis. This is how the mainstream media is labeling it – a “mental health crisis”. Having collectively turned their backs on God, most people living in former Christendom have no concept of demons or what spiritual oppression looks like. So those in positions of authority call it a mental health crisis and try to shock, counsel, incarcerate, or drug the demon-oppressed person into some semblance of health. Of course, these approaches don’t work, because the more you try to suppress a demon, the more it will call for back-up, which means the oppressed person will get worse and worse until finally succumbing to full possession or suicide.
The book of Revelation tells us of the time when Hell will empty out and every disembodied fallen spirit ever created will roam the earth, looking for a body to possess. It also says that no matter how bad things get at that time, people will still refuse to repent and will continue with the same sinful behavior that got them into their spiritual mess and vulnerability to demons in the first place.
We’re not at that point in Revelation yet (thank God), but we’re getting closer every day. Demons are gaining an upper hand in the lives of more and more people. Yet these same people, these demon-oppressed and occasionally possessed people, are our neighbours, our family members, or even our friends, and they need our help. They don’t know the kind of help they need – some don’t know they need help at all – but spiritual help is the only thing that can heal them.
How do you get people to ask for the kind of help that they don’t even know they need?
Jesus, during his ministry years, spent most of his time healing sick people, and the majority of those who were sick were demon-oppressed or possessed. There was an understanding among the general public at that time that demons were at the root of most health problems, so people actively sought out Jesus and his disciples, begging to be healed.
Spiritual rebirth is an exorcism. During the rebirth process, the spirits of the world (that is, demons) are expelled and God’s Holy Spirit enters in. No demon can share a soul with God’s Spirit; a soul can house only holy or unholy, not both types of spirit simultaneously. This process of exorcism happened to me and was confirmed by God to have happened, when later that same day, after reading the verse about seven devils being driven out of Mary Magdalene, I was told by God that he’d done the same to me, only there were a lot more than seven.
Exorcism nowadays has devolved into the stuff of horror movies or the confessions of renegade priests on YouTube looking for attention (and donations). But Jesus cast out demons as a matter of course, all in a day’s work AND WITHOUT PAY, and so did his disciples. Exorcism was part of their job description. People came to them specifically requesting that type of healing.
Fast-forward to today, and we see in Canada that it’s now illegal (as of 2022) to perform an exorcism under what the federal government calls “conversion therapy”. This should not be surprising, considering that Canada has become a posterchild for how fast a former Christian nation can devolve into godlessness. Canada is now officially a secular (atheist) nation, with more unbelievers than believers. Back when I was seven years old and started calling myself an atheist, I was in a very very tiny minority in Canada.
How fast we’ve fallen as a nation.
Exorcism heals. I know that, because it healed me at my rebirth 24 years ago. All the pain I’d accumulated since I was a child disappeared in an instant and has not come back. Exorcism is a casting out of demons from a soul, to be replaced by God’s Holy Spirit. God himself had to perform the exorcism on me, since no-one else offered to do it. In my pain, I cried out for help from the depths of my soul, but God was the only one who heard.
We, as born-again believers, who ourselves have been exorcised of the spirits of the world (or else wouldn’t be born-again), need to hear the cries of the demon-oppressed calling out for help. We need to hear them, and we need to help them. These people are everywhere, all around us. And like Jesus, we need to let them know we’re here and that we can help them. People traveled vast distances to get to Jesus for healing because they’d heard he could help them. They had faith in him that he could help them. We need to build that same faith in people today that they can come to us for healing. And we need to be ready and able to help them when they do.
I believe that demons are at the root of most people’s problems. We’re not in a mental health crisis, we’re in a spiritual health crisis. Sin opens the door to demons, and they let themselves in and make themselves at home. Once in a soul, the only way that demons will leave is either through the death of the host or exorcism.
Most people didn’t initially come to Jesus to hear the Gospel: They came to be healed. Then, after they were healed, they were open to receiving the Gospel. This is not surprising to me, since the first thing I did after God exorcised me was to reach for a Bible and read the four gospels for the first time in my life. I read them all in one sitting, and I haven’t stop reading them since.
If your notion of exorcism is still based on Hollywood’s version, you need to read and reread the gospels. And then you need to ask God to help you heal the spiritually sick the way that Jesus and his first disciples did.
For us born-again believers, exorcism is part of our job description.
