The true Christian life is a life of true conversion. The Latin is the word for turning around, turning from one direction to go in another.
This is something that has to be initially done at the very beginning of the Christian walk, and it is something that all of us must do daily, throughout the course of our Christian walk. And this is why gospel preaching is always preaching for true conversions.
It is wrong-headed to gather up the saints of God every week, and declare to them how to become the saints of God. But it is equally wrong-headed to act as though every baptized member is “in good” so long as they got their papers stamped by some ecclesiastical functionary. You must be born again, and when we say this, we are not talking the biblical symbols of it, like baptism, and we are not talking about our cultural symbols for it, like signing the back of a Bible, or going forward at a revival. We are talking about life.
When we are converted, we are turning away from death, and turning to life. When someone is first converted, they are turning from the state of death to the state of life. When someone has been long converted (in this world), there are always the remainders of death around us that we must turn from in our walk, in order to advance further across the threshold of life. We have crossed over into the precincts of Heaven, that is true, but how can we be satisfied with just a taste of that life?
Further up and further in.