John
16:13
Howbeit
when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come,
He will guide you into all Truth…
Have you ever done something
wrong or started to do something but felt guilty about doing it?
Something deep inside tells you
that you shouldn’t be doing whatever it is (whether stealing, lying, cheating, etc).
Once you have the Holy Ghost, we
should feel that feeling of guilt whenever we do something that is a sin.
It’s called Conviction.
I was listening to KLOVE a few
years back and kept hearing them play a young woman’s call in concerning how
she felt about the radio station.
I didn’t pay attention to the
first part of what she said, but the last part caught my attention. She said,
“…when I
listen to KLOVE, I don’t feel any conviction,
and that’s a good thing.”
Is it really a good thing?
People confuse conviction with condemnation.
Conviction means to ‘convince of error or sinfulness’.
Condemnation means ‘the expression of very strong disapproval,
to blame, to pronounce guilt.
Condemnation makes a person feel hopeless.
But the feeling of conviction helps a person know they are
doing wrong.
God put within each person a conscience to give a feeling of
guilt, not to condemn, but to help steer a person away from sin and prod them
to do what is right.
The Holy Ghost will convict us when we’re doing wrong if we
will listen.
If we don’t feel that little
nudge of conviction when we’re doing something wrong, then we need to examine
our prayer life a little more closely to see if we’re not praying as much or
like we should.
Proverbs 14:12 warns…
There is
a way which seemeth right unto a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
There is a tendency for a person
to consider their self and their ways righteous.
They don’t see anything wrong
with how they’re living or what they’re doing.
Example: King David – he
tried to cover his sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba by having her husband
killed and then marrying her.
He may or may not have felt a
little guilt over what he’d done – the Bible doesn’t say. But I think he was more-so concerned with not
getting caught.
When his sin was revealed though
Nathan the prophet in a parable, he still didn’t feel the conviction he needed
to. He listened to the story of the
stolen lamb and became angry at the man who had stolen it from his neighbor.
King David did not see himself as
the man in the mirror until Prophet Nathan pointed his finger and said, “THOU
art the man!” That was when he finally
and truly repented for the wrongs he had done. Two innocent lives paid for his
transgression….Uriah, Bathsheba’s first husband, and the baby conceived in
adultery.
Everyone thinks they’re a Christian
and saved nowadays, despite living a life that is completely contrary to
Scripture.
They’ll smoke, drink, cuss, yell,
scream, and live in fornication or adultery yet still insist they’re saved and
on their way to Heaven.
They think they’re on the right road
going the right way, but if the way they are living is opposite of the way the
Bible says to live then they are not on the right path.
I saw a tombstone one time with
the saying, “He did it his way.”
That’s a sad way to live yet
that’s the way so many want and choose to live.
People today do not want anyone
to tell them the way they’re living is wrong and a sin.
They don’t want anyone to say
anything that may make them feel conviction concerning their sinfulness.
We should not try to live life ‘our
way’ but instead we should be trying to live our life ‘God’s way.’
We need to pray daily so that the
Holy Ghost can lead and guide us in the way we are to live.
2 Corinthians 7:10
For godly
sorrow worketh repentance to salvation (CONVICTION)
not to be repented of:
but the sorrow of the world worketh
death. (CONDEMNATION)
The
purpose of feeling ‘conviction’ is not to condemn us
or cause us to just give up.
It’s there to lead and guide us
back onto the right path when we start to stray on to the wrong path.
It was conviction that caused
those gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost to repent of their sins and
turn to serve Jesus.
Acts 2:37
Now when they heard this,
they were pricked in their heart,
and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do?
The Bible records that there were
3000 souls added to the Kingdom that day as they turned from their sins, were
baptized in Jesus name and were filled with the Holy Ghost.
John
16:7-8
Nevertheless
I tell you the truth;
it is expedient (important) for you that I go away: for if I go not away,
the Comforter (Holy Ghost)
will not come unto you;
but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
And when He is come, He will reprove
the world of sin,
and of righteousness, and of judgment.
The purpose of the Holy Ghost is
to convict us of sin, show us what we’re doing wrong, and then lead us into
living right before God.
Jesus said in Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love,
I rebuke (convict) and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent.
Jesus is in essence saying, “I convict those I
love.”
It’s the love and mercy of Jesus that brings
conviction to your life.
Once we feel that conviction that
we’ve sinned (meaning done something that is wrong in God’s eyes), the next
thing we need to do is acknowledge our sin to God and ask Him to forgive us.
1 John
1:9
If we
confess (admit) our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Just as we forgive our children
when they admit they’ve done something wrong, God does the very same.
He said He’s faithful and just to
forgive us of our sins IF we confess and admit we’ve done wrong…whether it’s in
feelings, thoughts, actions, or words.
Once we admit and ask God to
forgive us, we need to try our best not to do the sin again.
WHAT IF I
DON’T FEEL CONVICTION
OR THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG TO DO?
We must always follow and obey
what the Bible says about it regardless of whether we feel bad about something
or not.
Your ‘feelings’ can deceive you.
A popular saying is to ‘follow your heart’ but the Bible
says….
Jeremiah
17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked: who can know it?
You can not follow after your
feelings. You have to follow the Bible.
Because the heart is desperately
wicked and will deceive a person into doing wrong while ‘feeling’ that there’s
nothing wrong with what they’re doing.
Sadly, there are people who will
steal and never feel bad about what they were doing yet the Bible clearly says
that stealing is a sin.
People fornicate or commit
adultery, ‘shack up’ living with someone they’re not married to yet they don’t
see anything wrong with it.
The Bible calls it sin and warns
against it over and over saying that anyone who commits fornication or adultery
cannot have a part in God’s Kingdom.
A common problem today even
within the ‘church’ is people see nothing wrong with telling what is considered
‘a little white lie.’
There is no such thing! A lie is a lie whether it’s little or big,
whether it’s completely fabricated or merely twisting or omitting parts of the
truth to avoid a sticky situation.
The Bible says,
But the
fearful, and unbelieving,
and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and idolaters,
and all liars, shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone:
which is the second death.
Rev 21:8
Yet people, even someone who
claims to be a Christian, will twist the truth and not feel bad about
lying. They’ll excuse and reason it
away…. “I didn’t want them to be mad.” Or “it’s better if they don’t know the
truth.” Or “it really isn’t lying.” Etc.
The Bible says ALL liars shall
have their part in the lake of fire.
We need to let the Holy Ghost
convict us and not ignore it. The Bible
will never direct us to do wrong.
Conviction leads us to repentance
– turning away from, shunning, forsaking sin.
God loves us too much to leave us
the way He found us.
If a person is not feeling
conviction over something the Bible clearly calls a sin, that’s NOT a ‘good
thing.’
He gives us the Holy Ghost to
lead us, guide us, and direct us in the paths of righteousness (right
living).
But we have to allow Him to
convict us. Then we need to listen to the little nudges that His Spirit gives
and obey Him.
Conviction IS a ‘Good
Thing’!
