John 16:8
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Condemnation and conviction: are they the same? People use them interchangeably. However, we need some mind renewing and spiritual discernment to differentiate conviction from condemnation (guilt) because they are actually not even in the same area code. One is born of darkness and the other is conceived of light. We need to make sure that we are listening and yielding to the right one.
Conviction is from the same root word as convince. Conviction is more of a tug on our consciences than a lash of blame. The Holy Spirit sends conviction upon God’s people as a guide or perhaps to act as a moral compass. After receiving salvation, I discovered that conviction has much more to do with a leading away from not only sin, but even things that aren’t wrong in the purest sense, but are wrong for me. I love to read, and when reading I could very easily lose myself in the story for hours at a time. The books that I was reading were not evil, in fact some of them were very uplifting, but my obsession with reading was taking up a great deal of time which could be used for God’s kingdom. Sports, movies, and video games: there is nothing wrong with these things, but if they are eating up valuable time that God wants used for His agenda, then you can expect to feel a conviction. The point of this is to move you forward in your walk with God.
Condemnation or guilt on the other hand is not a tool of God or the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8:1, the Apostle Paul declares “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit”. Guilt never originates from heaven. Condemnation is one of the most valuable tools used by the enemy to derail God’s people. Millions of Christians are thrown into despair by overwhelming guilt every day. This is a serious lack of faith on our part and it needs to be addressed. We as believers seem to have no problem receiving the initial free gift of salvation. If someone asks us how we know that we’re saved and forgiven, we simply say that it is written in God’s word and we believe it. However, we seem to lose this sense of confidence in the word when we stumble and fall. Even though we have a repentant heart and want to do better next time, Satan will often flood our consciences with feelings of guilt. This type of guilt is not only unhealthy; it often creates a sense of unworthiness and failure that causes millions of good Christian people to quit trying.
I used to be a dedicated smoker (two packs a day) and when I was trying to quit I would frequently “fall off the wagon”. Time and time again the feelings of guilt and failure would make me throw in the towel and pick up the habit again. It wasn’t until I was shown this truth about condemnation vs. guilt that I could continue in my walk with God even though I had stumbled. When being convicted by the Holy Spirit, I couldn’t wait to get things right in my life. When living in condemnation I would use any excuse at all to avoid church and my church family. The enemy’s lies about how dirty we are and how unworthy we are to worship God can keep anybody who listens to them out of the will of God. The thing we must remember is that our walk with Jesus is not a tightrope act. If we fall, and we all do, we do not have to start all over but just get up and keep walking.
It isn’t a license to sin, but rather a freedom from living under a shadow while we continually move ahead. As our relationship with Jesus deepens, we will find that much of the work is being done behind the scenes. The more we seek Him, the more He will transform us into the new creatures that we desire to be.