HOLINESS CONVICTS AND CONVERTS
Global Methodist Church General Conference 2026
September 1, 2026 Johannesburg South Africa

Diane N. Ury

National Ambassador for Holiness, USA Salvation Army

INTRODUCTION

Biblical Beauty is personal; it pursues us and grasps hold of us with allure. 

The Beautiful Holy One Himself is creating a sense of longing and wonder, drawing our souls toward Someone more Real than what our physical senses can grasp or our minds can explain. 

The Bible calls this, “The Beauty of Holiness”. 

God’s Triune Self-offering essence is shared Life and shared Love. 

Our holiness flows only out of union with the beautiful Holy One, the Triune God of Holy Love. 

He created us perfectly incomplete, because only filled with the Breath of God, are we holy and whole - truly human persons who bear His image. 

Adam and Eve turned their faces away from the Face and Breath of God through distrust; they utterly corrupted the entire human race. 

I call this is Anthropological Trauma.

Full salvation is restoration to Face to face union with our Creator. 

This union alone completes us and makes us holy, whole, and blameless.

Biblical vocabulary conveys similar meaning:

• Whole 
• Complete
• Entire
• Sound
• Healthful
• Integrity
• Unimpaired and Wholehearted
• Lacking nothing necessary to completeness

Describing Christian Perfection, John Wesley said: “For what is the most perfect creature in heaven or earth in Your eyes, O Lord, but a void – capable of being filled with You, by You.”

God has come for us in the Incarnation to restore us to oneness with Himself so we might be whole. 

Jesus knows us perfectly, not merely because He is with us, but because in Him God is one of us.

Biblical knowing is more than information - it’s encounter and experience.

It’s personal apprehension into one’s being to such a degree that it creates union.

Conviction is God’s Self-offering gift of knowing.  It’s the beauty of holiness truly grasping hold of us.

Conviction is the first stage of repentance. 

Repentance is humble re-turning, back to our Source of Love and Life.

Conviction is God’s most gracious personal initial movement toward us, because He longs for our wholeness. 

Conviction is the continuous Love of God and gift of grace to those who are entirely sanctified.

Conviction is the Beauty of our holy God coming for us.

ISAIAH 6:1-8

Isaiah 5:20ff is flooded with a series of woes expressing alarm at God’s judgment upon His people…
for calling evil good, and good evil;
for substituting darkness for light and light for darkness;
for being wise in their own eyes;

Suddenly Judah’s dependence upon humans for help is utterly shattered when their  effective political leader dies. 

We must continually ask ourselves what we might be depending upon. 

Education can be an idol. 

Our denomination can become an idol. 

Relying on anything but Jesus is idolatry, and disastrous delusion. 

We have capacity for this wickedness, so we must daily ask the Spirit to break into our self-deceit to reveal to us our idols.

Graciously, desperation breaks open space for Reality to enter. 

In Isaiah 6 God reveals Himself to Isaiah. “The Lord is on the throne!  His robe fills the temple.  The whole earth is full of His glory.” 

“Holy is the Lord God Almighty!”

This revelation includes God’s gracious offer of the gift of repentance.  This is the beauty of holiness coming for us.

In Wesley’s Order of Salvation “repentance” is essential.  All of us have sinned - turned our faces away from Life, taking possession of our beings as if we belong to ourselves. 

The result is de-humanizing and damning. 

We are de-humanized when we are not filled with God’s Life as He intends; 

then we dehumanize others. 

Repentance is turning our faces back to the Breath of Life, so He can re-humanize us.

Repentance contains 4 critical aspects of our ongoing relationship with God.

Repentance begins with Conviction

Conviction can be embarrassing, but it is God’s compassion, pure grace and an act of Self-offering love.

Holiness is the God of Love Himself; it’s not rules or standards. Therefore Holiness Himself convicts us. He is Truth. He is Reality. 

In conviction He is loving us unto Himself.

Conviction is not unkind. God’s searing Eyes, earth-shaking Voice will bring pain, unquestionably. But it offers the only way to enter into Real Life.

Isaiah 6:5 God mercifully reveals to Isaiah a vision of who Isaiah truly is. 

The ‘“Woe” is me’ that Isaiah declares is different from those “woes” in chapter 5. 

Isaiah’s Woe is a visceral, gut-level gasping awareness that something is terribly wrong. 

I think it’s a desperate gasping for the Breath of God. 

It exudes from utter helplessness.

Friends, this morning let’s bring our attention to how this applies to an entirely sanctified life.

In the life of one who is entirely sanctified, “conviction” is one of the key and continuous experiences of the intimate Holy Love of the Triune God. 

Psalm 19:12

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
Cleanse me of these hidden faults.

How can we know the lurking things? 

We cannot know. 

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

CONVICTION is our only hope for holiness, when God shines His Light into the lurking places, and His Voice reveals to us things we didn't know were there, so we’re not left to go around harming others in our self-deceit.

This is not to condemn, but so we might be cleansed!

Like Isaiah 6, Paul tells us in Col. 3 to set our sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ is enthroned. Paul says we are now filled with His Life – Christ is our life! 

3:5 NLT “And put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within us.”

Conviction occurs when God is offering Himself to us. His Voice through His Holy Word speaks into us from outside this world, from outside our own heads.  This is beautiful love and grace.

(2 Cor. 4:6). “For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the Light of the glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ”. 

Continuously face to Face with Jesus, Like Isaiah, living in a posture of humility and openness to whatever He speaks, feeding on His Word - offers to us the possibility of real encounter with the Holy One. 

What follows is CONTRITION

…  a critical piece in repentance. It’s a result of humble conviction moving from head to heartfelt sorrow. Like Isaiah’s woe – it’s deep remorse, humiliation and regret for something we’ve done, or for an attitude we’ve held. Awareness that we’re destitute when separated from God. 

But also, it’s always accompanied by being held in Jesus’ loving arms of hope the entire time. 

We must not remain in conviction and contrition. They’re not saving; these move us forward into…

CONFESSION

Vs. 5 - Isaiah confesses that he’s undone, ruined. 

Perhaps the gasping woe indicates he’s been given an accurate picture of humanity’s sinful nature.  His own and that of his people.

The word “ruined” in verse 5 means cut off, destroyed, to perish. 

It means Disintegration. 

When we cut ourselves off from Jesus, we’re separated from Life; we are shattered, anything but whole and sound.

If we won’t receive conviction, we have no access to Him breathing Life into our beings. 

We’re walking around, “doing ministry”, looking really good, but in truth we’re zombies. Flesh with no Spirit. We’re cut off from Life, living a lie.

We’re spiritually dead, decaying and damned.

Isaiah was gifted with this vision of his reality. 

And he didn’t resist it.

What about us? 

Are we continuously posturing our beings in such a way that Jesus can reveal to us who we really are? 

In CONFESSION, when the Holy Spirit speaks to us about our sin, we listen, receive and agree. 

We don’t deny His findings, 

we don’t make excuses for them, calling them infirmities;

we don’t attribute them to our personality type, our background or damage; 

we don’t blame another person for our behavior. 

We say to Him, “Yes, Sir. You’re exactly right. ____________ is sin.” 

Confession is agreeing with God about His assessment of who we are. 

We look Jesus right in the eye, not diverting our gaze. 

We receive His full-eyed love, which heals our being.

Bringing God’s assessment to another trusted, compassionate friend dispels the captivity of dark shame and its breeding ground. 

Plus, it provides growth through accountability. Otherwise, we will slip into self-deceit and never experience holiness.

Both acts of confession lead to healing of our disintegrated lives.

Isaiah confesses that he’s been shown his unclean, defiled lips. These words indicate his speech. 

 In Mark 7:20-23 

Remember, Jesus tells the fussing holiness people they’re hypocrites. Quoting Isaiah, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce.” (Mark 7:6-7 NLT)

Jesus clarifies, it is not what goes in your belly that defiles you, but it's what comes out of the inside of your heart. 

It's the inner being that defiles us. That affects our speech.

He gives this incredible list of defiling things. 

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

These are striking because we might recognize ourselves:

We think, "Oh no, Jesus, how did those vile things get in my heart? What does it mean if those things are coming out in my life, from my mouth?”

In his sermon, “Sin in Believers” Wesley tells us that our interior self-centered responses are sin. 

They might not be reigning, not expressed outwardly, but the fact of their existence within is what he calls “inbred sin”. 

This isn’t forgiven. It must be cleansed.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes it clear that we can be cleansed and free even of kneejerk inner responses of resentment or anger, lurking behind deceitful, flattering words and smiles.

That sounds like the most delicious freedom and glory I’ve ever heard of! 

To live with that kind of cleansed heart is what my heart hungers for! 

It would be easy to just honor God with my lips. 

Wesleyan theology refers to that as sin that doesn’t reign. 

We’ve learned how to appear good. We have “power over willful sin”. 

That goal is too low.

Wesley reminds us that Jesus says, "No, no, no, no. I want those thoughts and feelings not even to occur to you.

I long to cleanse and free you from that.”  And fill you with Perfect Love.

ISAIAH 6:6-7

Isaiah has seen the King and is convicted of his defiling speech. 

But next the Seraphim flies to him carrying the burning flesh of the sacrificial Lamb from the high altar.  With this fiery coal he touches Isaiah’s mouth.

“Lips” are the boundary out of which words come. 

“Mouth” is a different Hebrew word. It’s the entry way for eating, for breathing; it’s the gateway of life. Interestingly, in Hebrew it’s the doorway of the heart.

I remind you, in the Bible, the first time the Lord ever commands us to be holy is in Leviticus 11:41-45. He’s talking about not eating swarming things. These commands about not eating things that defile us are book-ended before and after with the same command, “Be holy for I am Holy”.

I think what God's saying is watch what you're feeding yourself. Your holy living depends upon it. 

In scripture to taste is the deepest kind of knowing. What we taste of enters our innermost being and forms our affections. 

We are what we eat.

God is concerned with the way defiling things get inside us. 

Who and what are we meditating upon? (Psalm 19:14)

The Holy Spirit will cleanse our minds, hearts, and bodies. Our thoughts, words, and behavior. 

Like Adam and Eve’s corrupting meal, if we're feeding on trash, Jesus can re-create our appetites when he satisfies us with Himself. 

Our inner being is the dwelling place of what forms us. 

Here abides that of which we taste. It’s the place of hunger and thirst.

It’s the created space God made for His very Presence to dwell, our Bread of Life.

He wants to transform our lustful appetites for resentment, pride, ambition, and self-pity.

Will we let the Holy Spirit convict and cleanse us of those things? 

Psalm 36:1-3 Transgression speaks deep within the heart of the wicked;
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
In his own eyes he does not see or comprehend his sin;
He flatters self until he thinks that he is good within.

3 The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.

My friends, that can happen to anyone. And that can even happen to someone who has been entirely sanctified…

…if we’re not desperately, continually abiding in Jesus. 

This highlights the essential nature of the Means of Grace!

The reason this is true is because an entirely sanctified life is an intimate, continuous face to Face relationship. 

To maintain a life of biblical holiness, AN ENTIRELY SANCTIFIED LIFE, we must continuously receive the Light of His Face, and welcome the Grace of sanctifying conviction. 

God longs for us to experience His sanctifying love.

Not only does sin not have to reign in our lives, the Spirit of God can deliver us from sin that remains in our lives.

Now, our response to that good news is very telling.  

I first heard of entire sanctification when I was 20 years old. I was so full of sin and darkness and despair, when I heard of this extent of Jesus’ love, I thought I was imagining things.  But I leaned in and said, “Oh, please!! Yes!”  I was as dry and desolate as anyone could be and was thirsting for life and wholeness and to be made clean.

This good news of re-creation is the message God has raised up The Global Methodist Church to proclaim throughout the planet! 

Friends, I am so desirous that The Global Methodist Church will be true to God’s calling to holiness for the sake of our world lost in despair and darkness. 

BUT we also can respond with skepticism and scoffing, leaning back with our arms crossed insisting that inbred sin must remain until we die. Or we assure ourselves it doesn’t exist.

Sadly, we can resist the gift of conviction with hard-hearts.

In Judges 7 we see from Achan’s example the result for us is death and damnation. Private cherished forbidden delicacies lurking in our dwelling.

ONE PERSON blind to the way we coddle lurking things in our inner being, hidden beneath great talent and impressive appearances, can destroy a family, a church, an institution, a denomination, a nation, or an entire culture.

The wonderful reality about being called to be holy is that the first step is simply recognizing that we’re desperately helpless and must cling to Jesus every moment of our lives to be what He intends. 

Basically, a holy life is a desperate life.

Can we be desperate?  Yes, we can!

He designed our human nature to be desperate for Him!

A holy life recognizes that we never think we’re self-sufficient and can live apart from God.

Jesus is our Creator Who is the healing of our separation from God in His own Person. 

Jesus has come to re-create our destroyed race. Jesus intends to restore us to communion with Reality. 

THAT IS CONVERSION

Isaiah 6:6-7 That burning Lamb that touched Isaiah’s defilement prefigures salvation in Jesus Christ.  God did not rescue humanity from its corruption by proclamation from a sterile distant place. 

In the Incarnation the eternal Son grasped hold of our corrupted, defiled, decayed human nature and brought us right into His own Life. 

Throughout the gospels Jesus often heals and saves by touching. This is not a disgusted, quick “ew”. 

This Greek word for touch means He adheres Himself to those He places His hand upon. 

When we are “in Christ”, the extremities of God’s Holy Love and our vile wickedness are met together in Jesus, Who takes us into Himself and pours Himself into us.

The man with hopeless leprosy to the bone fell at Jesus’ feet asking if He was willing to make him clean. 

Jesus still replies with the powerful I AM statement: “I AM Willing.” 

Jesus touches, adheres Himself to our corrupted humanity and we are cleansed.

When we give Jesus our sin, he takes it. He receives our whole life. 

Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

Our iniquity is taken; sin forgiven.

With CONVERSION…

…Jesus has more for us than merely having a rational change of thinking, 

coming to faith, 

changing our worldview, 

now believing correct facts about Christianity and the Articles of Faith. 

None of those are saving.

I know people who have PhDs in holiness, but are mean. 

One can be a leader in a Wesleyan Holiness denomination, or institution, or church, and be prideful, self-serving, ambitious, envious, and divisive. 

I know this because I’ve lived in it. 

But most of all because I was this.  I graduated top of my class from seminary. But thanks be to the God of Holy Love, He revealed to me that I was well-educated, but also self-righteous, judgmental, and unkind, to say the least. 

All in the name of the doctrine of holiness!

I’ll never get over the convicting shame and embarrassment. 

But it was the most profound experience of being loved by God that I had ever known. 

The intimacy of His fiery revelation and scorching Breath into my mind and heart, I experienced as the deepest, knowing, cleansing love I’d ever encountered.

Sanctifying Love is a miracle of cleansing and healing and love. 

An entirely sanctified person is most able to hear the Voice of God revealing their sin. They are most willing to be confronted by God and by others about their “lurking, swarming things”, and to confess and obey and be sent, because they experience conviction as deep love from God.  

As a gift!

In Wesley’s order of salvation, the most profound growth and progress occur after a person is entirely sanctified.  

Because that person lives in such continuous, desperate, clinging, dependent love upon Jesus that the Holy Spirit has continual access to speak into, to refine, to fill with Himself and re-create that person restored with His image. 

The holy life is continuous desperate face to Face beholding, breathing, and becoming.

As you come to the table to receive Jesus into your inner being which He created for Himself, this is a divine act of re-creation. 

You will become a witness to His sanctifying grace because He has poured His real Life into you. 

Beauty has come for you.