I drove in the streets of the city of London several years ago. What a new and exciting experience! My biggest fear during those days was climbing into the car and entering traffic on the right side of the road instead of the left, and meeting with disaster. It would have been so easy to do. The only way I avoided that was to be constantly alert and conscious of the British rules of the road. It is difficult to learn new habits when old ones run at a deep instinctive level.

Our lifestyle habits are like that. And when Jesus Christ becomes our Lord and Sovereign through the process of conversion, we suddenly become aware of a whole new set of "traffic rules" to live by.

That is what makes conversion to Christ so difficult sometimes. And it can also be very painful. I have been a believer in this New Way all of my adult life, and I still discover deep trenches of resistance within me to the work of transformation that Christ would like to accomplish.

Conversion means we are to live by the law of love. Most of us think we know what love is, but when the crisis comes, we yearn to live by the law of self-preservation. We resist fiercely the concept of self-denial. But how can Christians even begin to understand what it means to glorify God, when secretly and most often subconsciously we plot intricate ways by which we glorify ourselves again and again?

We are still suffering from the belief that Christianity is a rigorous adherence to a set of rules that govern external behaviour. A checklist religion. "Do you smoke, drink, dance or chew, or run around with girls that do?" The big question of the day in my youth was whether it was a sin to be in the theatre, or whether it was worldly to play cards or have a beer. The attitudinal sins were left unchecked. No one cared much that pride, greed and class envy ruled the roost and was rotting the church from within.

The war within is the real war that the church of Jesus Christ needs to focus on. Church leaders are becoming lightening rods to attract the blame and guilt of a thousand unforgiven sins. Christians forget that One has already died for their sins. So they look eternally for other scapegoats. None will do. And the fallout from the ensuing struggle to pin blame and guilt is becoming obvious as bruised believers limp from church to church, looking for a place where ultimately there is peace. But if they do not focus on the inner life, there will only be a false peace. For true peace comes only when we are reconciled within. That's where true conversion begins and ends. Won't you finally believe that as a child of God, you, Christian, are forgiven? Quit trying to justify yourself. It's already been done.