Today’s Daily Light
Con’t…summary thoughts from our study….The Search For Significance, by R. McGee
Learning to Listen … The Work of the Spirit ‘Inside Us’
The word ‘convict’ means to convince of error or sinfulness. The convicting work of the Holy Spirit is God’s way of showing you that your thoughts and/or actions are contrary to your new nature in Christ.
As we have seen thus far in our study, our ungodly thoughts, painful emotions, and disobedient actions usually originate in our false belief system. The Holy Spirit convicts us of ungodliness ‘in order to’ 1) expose the wrongdoing; 2) expose its basis in false beliefs; 3) reestablish God’s truth as the root of our thoughts and actions; 4) draw us back into a life of love and service for Christ.
The Holy Spirit’s work of conviction begins as He reveals our obvious sinful acts to us – stealing or lying, for instance. Then, as we mature, His conviction is more often focused on sins of omission than commission – more on what we do not do than what we do. (Key phrase in this last sentence is ‘as we mature’).
It is important to avoid leaning on your own or any other person’s understanding about what is sin in your life. Study the Scriptures to see what God wants for you, and listen to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. (Although we all know that there are occasions when we are not listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit as He seeks to convict us of sin…and in those situations…our loving heavenly Father may send another believer/person to us to help us see the sin in our life with the goal of helping us grow and change.)
We need to not confuse guilt with conviction. We need to learn the practice of taking our thoughts and deeds before the Lord to see what He thinks of them. Ask Him to show you which ones are guilt feelings and which ones are actually sins. Playing the blame game is a trick from Satan and too often causes us to miss hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit as He is at work convicting us of true sin.
Learn to identify the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting us of sin and to identify Satan’s lies that create our false beliefs. Reject these false beliefs and replace them with God’s truth. And thus ‘renew’ and grow….and mature…. ‘so that’ you will produce eternal fruit for the eternal kingdom.
Father..I pray today that you will expand our ability to see and believe that You do speak to us through Your ‘word’ in the Holy Scriptures…help us to hunger and depend on daily communication with You through time in Your word and time spent with you in prayer. Help us to learn to practice listening to Your Spirit speak to us ‘so that’ we can change and grow and produce eternal fruit. Amen
