True conversion is more of an ongoing activity than a onetime experience. It is the act of deliberately and repeatedly turning from vanity, sin and Satan to serve the true and living God.
The Signs of True Conversion, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 15.
As the Reformers put it, saving faith is the instrument by which we subjectively appropriate Christ’s objective, finished work. It is an opening of our empty hands to receive what God is offering. But we shall never give God all the glory for our salvation unless we remember that even the opening of our hands depends on what God has already done in the hiddennes of our hearts.
The Signs of True Conversion, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 29.
7 Signs of True Saving Faith: Faith in Christ’s sufficient work on the cross. Signs and evidence of true biblical repentance. Deliberate turn from a life enslaved to sin to embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior. Desire/joy to follow God’s Word-(obeying God’s law from the heart). Bearing fruit (attitude [fruit of the Spirit] and action [good works])-Continual working out our salvation. Desire to live for God’s glory. Christlike desires and emotions.
American Christianity tends toward a kind of “easy-believism.” The Gospel is often presented in a way that suggests that someone is saved as soon as he or she has “accepted” Jesus as Savior, even if that “acceptance” never manifests itself in the emotional and volitional recentering of the person’s entire life. But this is actually the paradigm of the sort of dead and fruitless faith that the whole New Testament condemns.
The Signs of True Conversion, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 28.