Straight paths through crooked roads

Growth in the relationship to Christ: discerning conviction from condemnation

One of the great weapons of the enemy of our spirit is confusion.  Satan causes a battle in our minds in many different ways.  One of these is the use of condemnation.  We may sense something in our minds that tells us that we are no good.  There is a general feeling of worthlessness.  There is a sense of discouragement.  That is Satan's tool to discourage you in your walk with the Holy Spirit.

However, one of the tools of the Holy Spirit is conviction of sin.  Genuine conviction carries with it a sense of deep concern over a specific area of sin in our lives.  This is some specific activity or attitude on our part that, if we are honest, we will agree with the Holy Spirit that something needs to change here. 

The conviction is actually the spiritual enablement to surrender that thing to Christ and to let it go for good.  Once the Christian says, OK Lord, I surrender this area to You.  I bring these thoughts and feelings and attitudes to You and leave them on Your altar.  I ask You to cleanse my mind and heart.  Please replace my unclean motivations with the pure motivations supplied by the Holy Spirit in this area. 

Then, believe the Lord for direction and protection from temptation in this area.  Look for the nature of Christ to show more clearly through you in new situations.  Take grateful satisfaction in the victory the Holy Spirit is creating in your walk with God.  Look for opportunities to express this new attitude in your relationship to other people, if this idea applies here.

There is no need for Christians to walk under a cloud of confusion, of condemnation, of discouragement.  "There is therefore no condemnation to those who walk in the Spirit.  For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."  Romans 8:1 and 2.

We know Whom we have believed: the way worship works.

My pastor was saying that the presence of God in our midst is the essential element of the character of our congregation. He said that worship was the means to invite God's presence with us because He is seeking worshippers who do so in spirit and in truth.

This reminded me of the story of two close friends.  One man was trusting and simple while his friend loved to play pranks on him.  Once, the prankster called to fool his friend into believing that the roof of his house was on fire.  But, the friend said, "You can't fool me this time, John, I recognize your voice."

It's like that for the genuine Christian.  Once a person has the Holy Spirit living within his or her spirit, the Holy Spirit gives impressions to direct the believer.  The believer learns over time the difference between his own conscience, the thoughts put there by outside influences, and the believer's best friend, the Holy Spirit.  We know Him spirit to spirit, our eternal spirit to the Holy Spirit.

When we worship in spirit and in truth, we are reaching out our spirit to touch the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit responds with a sense of love, of forgiveness, of healing, of wisdom for a certain situation, or some other spiritual gift, if only the sweet savor of His embrace.

It is in our sweet surrender to His love for us that we acknowledge that His gracious love has won our heart at last.  We set ourselves aside for Him and we set Him aside for ourselves.  But how can we who are so small set God aside for ourselves? 

Remember the marriage vows that a husband gives a wife and that a wife returns to her husband?  They each choose to accept the other as the one and only one for them.  They "forsake all others and keep themselves" only to each other.  Likewise, we see all of the other beliefs, but we choose Christ and set Him aside unto ourselves as the only recipient of our faith and faithfulness. 

We realize that our love with Christ will provide us with the love essential for our spouses, families, and others.  Because we offer worship as a genuine expression of self-sacrifice to our Savior, we also sense His loving grace towards us. 

It is now that we begin to understand Colossians 1:26 "Christ in us, the hope of glory".  That is to say, Christ in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit is the source of the expression of God's presence and character in our lives. 

Now we can say, "I know Whom I have believed..." in worship.

The power of testimony, the mystery of 12, and the principle of "too late."

The Bible refers at one point to the power of the testimony of Christians.  And, there is something spiritually significant about the number of twelve.  Because there were twelve tribes of Israel, Joshua made a command that the Israelites place twelve stones, representing each tribe at the river of Jordan.  This was a memorial to the miracle that God made the Jordan river stand still as the people crossed over to the other side on the dry river bed.  This same number of twelve was used by Jesus to appoint twelve disciples.  This became a tradition in American law, that we have twelve members of a jury.  The unanimous vote of twelve jurors has the legal power to decide the fate of an accused person.  What if we combine the power of our Christian testimony with the power of 12? 

How?  In a small group meeting with a minimum of twelve seriously born again Christians, each in turn gives a testmony on exactly how they came to give themselves to Jesus Christ in salvation.  Salvation testimonies are powerful because they carry the witness to an actual miracle of the Spirit.  Each testimony then becomes an affirmation of the testimony of each of the others.  Each testimony is evidence of the spiritual, emotional, and even physical changes of believers. 

When each has given their salvation testimony of how they came to Christ, a second step follows.  Each one is challenged to think of as many instances as possible in which Christ has made a difference in their lives that they cannot account for in any other way.  This might include a forgiveness of a wrong suffered that would not have been forgiven except for the motivation of Christ and the Holy Spirit speaking into the spirit of the believer.  Or, it might be a miracle of healing.  It could be any number of things where the Holy Spirit was involved as He revealed the nature of Jesus Christ in a believer's life.  Each of these is a genuine miracle of God.

New believers may not have anything come to mind except their own conversion.  Others will have a whole string of events where God has revealed His divine character.  But, each one is a sort of testimonial stone that can be added up to a monument of personal faith. 

This validation of the faith each believer expresses is a wonderful building block of the confidence we can and need to have when the enemy of our souls, Satan, attacks us with reasons to doubt our salvation. 

One specific weapon we can use with our testimonial stones is the principle of "too late".  We all know that there is such a thing as "too late."  "Too late" is neither good nor bad, it just is a principle that we know works because we have at times been too late or we have seen others be too late. 

You see, we know that reasons to doubt the truth of our relationship with Christ will come.  However, if we have built a monument of testimonial miracles in our life, Satan will be too late. 

We will know in the deepest part of our being that the voice of the Holy Spirit is not our imagination.  We will know in the nearest and farthest part of our mind that our God is not just a spiritual teddy bear but that He is the worker of miracles that we have witnessed.  We will simply know Him, our spirit to His Holy Spirit.  Then, we will walk in confidence in the face of anything.  We will walk in the power of our own testimony of Christ in us, Who is the hope of our glory.  We will walk in the certainty that twelve witnesses bring a conclusive decision to place our trust in the Lover of our souls.  We will walk in the fact that there is such a thing as too late and that Satan is too late to have us. 

Just think.  We will have ruined Satan's plan for our eternity.  He is too late but we are right on time.