| Author | Message | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 38 Registered: 11-2004 |
I have a question or two  I know the Bible talks about how the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts of sin, but is that the only one who convicts of sin? I mean, couldn't a person become convicted of something (i.e. don't eat meat) by someone talking to them. Isn't it sin if a person believes from the Bible that they should "keep the Sabbath" and then they don't? Doesn't the Bible talk about if you are under the law you will be judged by the law? | ||
| Wolfgang Registered user Username: Wolfgang Post Number: 88 Registered: 10-2005 |
you know I have been convicted by the HS on a number of issues. When I joned the SDA church I took off my wedding band not because I felt convicted it was because I felt gulity,a woman came up to me after church and said she was so happy to see my ring gone I went home and put it back on. | ||
| Wolfgang Registered user Username: Wolfgang Post Number: 89 Registered: 10-2005 |
you know I have been convicted by the HS on a number of issues. When I joned the SDA church I took off my wedding band not because I felt convicted it was because I felt gulity,a woman came up to me after church and said she was so happy to see my ring gone I went home and put it back on. | ||
| Bobj Registered user Username: Bobj Post Number: 41 Registered: 1-2006  |
Hi U2 It's easy for others to make us feel guilty about not following group norms or about things which are not sins at all. I've known people who suffered from guilt for things that many very conscientious Christians regard as perfectly acceptable. It's pretty easy to surrender your freedom and peace and happiness in this life to the whims of others. Be careful who you listen to, and be careful who you read. Remember that the last few verses of Col 2 mention human made rules--do not touch, taste, do not handle, self-imposed worship, etc that are based on worthless human commands and teachings. Col 3 gives some rules for holy living. The Holy Spirit will make it clear if there are sins you need to deal with. Avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism. Much more can be said here, but remember that we are absolutely free in Christ and are justified (the NASB in Acts 13:39 uses the word "free" instead of "justified") from everything which you could not be justified (or freed) from by the Law of Moses. Paul has much to say about living a Spirit led life, not one governed by rules. Bob | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 41 Registered: 11-2004 |
I understand the freedom we have in Christ. I have heard from other Christians that the Holy Spirit convicts different people about different things. For example, they say that He may convict someone about Sabbath keeping, head coverings, or healthy eating, but not someone else. Would you all agree with that or do you think that some of what people view as conviction is actually guilt imposed from other people. How would a person know the difference? If we see a person under conviction about something (i.e. Sabbath keeping) and we are not under conviction about it should we say nothing? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 4320 Registered: 12-2003  |
U2, you're asking a very good question. Our consciences and the Holy Spirit are two different things. Our consciences can be trained by others; they can be taught that eating ham is a sin and that worshiping on Sunday will yield the mark of the beast. When a person is born again, they become spiritually alive in a body that is still dead in sin (Romans 8:10). It takes time for a person to begin to live by the Spirit instead of by the standards they learned while still "in the flesh". This conflict between obedience to the Spirit and succumbing to the flesh is what Paul addresses in Romans 6-7. The Holy Spirit can be trusted to lead a born again person into obedience to Him. But a person who is not born again will likely not be responding to direct teaching from the Holy Spirit because he is not indwelt by Him. When a person has committed himself to Jesus, he can know Jesus but still be immersed in false teaching. He won't grow spiritually very muchóunless he begins to allow the Holy Spirit to cause him to question the untruths he's immersed in. If he refuses to recognize the truth to which the Spirit is calling him, he'll likely stagnate spiritually. A person's conscience, though, can convict a person that something is a sin even if it isn't. If a person believes certain things are sinsóhe needs to abstain in order to be acting in faith. (Anything a person does outside of faith is sin.) But it's not necessarily the Holy Spirit who is convicting a person that something is a sin if it's actually not. What the Holy Spirit mainly does is convict a person of Jesus. As a person responds to Jesus and the gospel and the truth in the Bible, these other perceived sins will begin to drop away. If a person refuses to look to Jesus, however, in favor of the other things he believes he must do, then he begins to act outside of faith. As a person grows in Jesus, more and more our lives become conformed to the Holy Spirit's teaching, and less and less we are constrained by "holy behaviors". Oh, there will be holy behaviors, but increasingly they will reflect the fruit of the Spirit instead of "self-made religion, self-abasement, and severe treatment of the body", as Colossians 2:23 says. One last thingófalse guilt produces anxiety and compulsion that is never fully resolved by self-discipline. Conviction by the Holy Spirit produces clarity about what should happen, and there is peace and resolution when we act in obedience to Him. Colleen | ||
| Helovesme2 Registered user Username: Helovesme2 Post Number: 564 Registered: 8-2004  |
The Holy Spirit is not in the business of convicting people that things that are not sin actually are sinful. He is God and God cannot lie, neither does He constantly change His mind. God says about Himself, ìI am the Lord, I change not.î So when someone is 'convicted' about things like you list, I have to wonder where that conviction came from. God is not capricious. He doesn't say that blue is blue one day but white the next. He doesn't commend you for doing one day what he forbids the next. He doesn't convict one person that the world is coming to an end and convict another person that it's not. He doesn't free one person from the bonds of legalism and bind the next one in tighter legalism than the first was originally. He doesnít teach on person that Salvation is by grace alone thru faith, and then teach another one ëbut you must eat this, wear that, and abstain from the other in additioní. There ARE some ways that God does lead one person differently than another. For example, He may send Professor A to leave his post at a prestigious school of higher learning and send him to work in, oh, China or someplace, while He sends Professor B to move from the backwoods college he was at to take Professor A's place and live a life of Christian witness at that same prestigious school. He may lead one person to forgo the pleasures of marriage and family in order to focus on working for Him, and lead another person to fully surrender to Him by getting married and creating a Christian family. Also, there ARE people who, while sincerely following God, come to one understanding of a thing while others equally sincere and surrendered come to an understanding from a different stand point. For example there are churches that use only one cup in Communion while there are others that use multiple cups. Some use wafers, others use bread. Some play hymns, some use only Psalms, others use ëcontemporary Christian, or Southern Gospel, or Country/Bluegrass Gospel. Some have a full orchestra, some a band, some a piano and organ, some sing unaccompanied (and some, having to have their Christian services in secret have no luxury of singing at all, and would find the whole controversy frivolous and silly). But, while sometimes called ëmatters of convictioní I would hesitate to aver that the Holy Spirit was too busy in convicting on any of these points (except as one person or another may idolatrously replace their devotion to God with devotion to any one of these points). I think what many people label as conviction is actually something else. Sometimes it is fear, enacted on our souls by our own worried minds, or by the pressures of our peers; sometimes pride, the force of tradition (it was always done this way it MUST be right); or of a longing to be unique, to have a point that we ëgot rightí that the whole world is wrong on. Usually itís caused by ignorance of God - both who He is and how He works. Usually it crops up in people who do not have a clear grasp of Reality as it is in Jesus and are grasping at illusions instead. I do believe that at least some times when people claim they are convicted it IS their consciences speaking ñ but their consciences are uneducated, unsanctified, deaf in some degree to the Holy Spiritís voice, confused as to ëwhich voiceí is talking to them. I'm so thankful that God is "longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish," that He continues to work with us; to woo us and win us, to draw us to Himself, even though we all start out confused and ignorant and lost. I'm thankful that in calling us to Himself He does not give up because we're hardheaded, but rather knows our frame and continues to teach us. I'm grateful that He gives us hearts that cry out to Him even in the middle every kind of error . . . and that He, hearing the faintest call, comes running! I'm thankful that he lets us talk with each other, learn from each other, and share with each other, as one ragamuffen He's saved to another. I'm amazed that He, while needing nothing, lets us help Him. Lets us work for Him. Lets rest in Him. Lets us revel in the joy He gives along the way, and know that when we reach the 'end' of our journey it's really only the beginning! Just my tupence worth. Blessings, Mary | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 43 Registered: 11-2004 |
Thank you for your thoughtful responses Mary and Colleen. Do you feel it is our duty as fellow Christians to share with others about what the Bible has to say about certain convictions they have? Or should we just share the joy of the Lord with them and let the Holy Spirit lead them? For instance, recently in a group of woman one woman shared how she had 5 children and was pregnant with another and didn't think she wanted any more children. She was struggling with the issue of whether to use birth control. Others in the group had the "let God decide how many children" belief and they encouraged her with things like God wouldn't give you what you are not able to handle and told her certain Bible studies she could do to buld up her faith in that area. I, on the other hand, shared a different perspective and was chastized for undermining a person's conviction from God. Any thoughts? | ||
| Honestwitness Registered user Username: Honestwitness Post Number: 88 Registered: 7-2005  |
I'm definitely not of the "let God decide how many children" belief. One could take that concept to its extreme and never take a bath, wash one's hair, or trim one's nails. After all, we should let God decide how long our nails are, shouldn't we? (NOT!) God gave us intelligence to use in maintaining our bodies, including conception-control methods. I don't support methods, however, that end an unborn life that has already started in the womb. A further point on that--the Bible says the life is in the blood. Science tells us that blood cells are formed in the fetus around the seventeenth day after fertilization. Therefore, by the time a woman even begins to suspect she might be pregnant, the fetus is ALIVE. HW | ||
| Helovesme2 Registered user Username: Helovesme2 Post Number: 565 Registered: 8-2004 |
Hmm. That's a tough question! I do feel it is our 'duty' to stick close to God's heart, and listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In a situation like this I would really hope I would know when to speak and when to keep quiet, and that God would give whatever words were to be spoken. Perhaps it would be time to speak in spite of the hurtful words of the others, or perhaps it would be better to try to talk to the struggling lady in a more private setting. Or perhaps it would be time to add her to your prayer list and take extra time to talk to Him about it. Either way, I'm praying for her and for you right now! Blessings, Mary Yahoo ID: ladylittle | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 799 Registered: 4-2000  |
A TRUTH TO PONDER "In hell there will be no atheists--only believers." --Another "Adrianism" from the late Adrian Rogers, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention Dennis Fischer | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 4327 Registered: 12-2003 |
U2óI echo Mary's thoughts above. God really does present us with opportunities to speak when we ask Him to. I'm also praying for you right nowóand for your friend. Colleen | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 185 Registered: 10-2002  |
Paul wrote, "Whatever is not of faith is sin", and in this way I think we can understand why God often responds to the sincere Sabbath-keeper who has no better understanding that the Sabbath day has been fulfilled. Some are "convicted" by their lack of faith and they don't know any better, so in their conscience, if they don't obey, they would be disobeying God. If they're being true to their conscience, I believe God helps them---and in His own way and timing, works to set them free from anything keeping them captive. At the same time, C.S. Lewis said it's possible to be totally sincere & honest in your beliefs, and yet be sincerely wrong. I don't know where to "draw the line", but when I can help in some way and when He directs me to, I want to help people free. But freedom will come through faith, through their relationship with God---not through believing the "right" things. Each person individually needs to understand why something is right. Their confession of the right thing won't help if on the inside they're ignoring something that is against their conscience. But anyway, the coolest thing about the "conviction" of the Holy Spirit is when we look at the context of that passage in John 16: We often remember the part about the Holy Spirit "convicting us of sin" and forget the rest of what Jesus said. We focus on "sin" and so basically we focus on Law---wrong and right. We think the "conviction of the Spirit" is merely about wrong and right! But if we look closely, we notice that Jesus is completely re-setting the notion of what "sin" is... Sin is not believing in Jesus. The only righteousness is Jesus. The great sin is rejecting Him. Righteousness, He says, is defined by Him leaving this world to go to the Father. He is the only One who is worthy to go before the Holy God, He is the only righteous One. Judgment means that Satan now stands condemned. How? By the Cross. What Jesus has done has condemned the enemy, brought righteousness to light, and has exposed sin forever. I don't fully understand these things, but I believe Jesus is re-setting our understanding of "sin" to the Cross. It is what He has done for us that shows us what sin truly is, even moreso than the Law. The Law does show us what sin is, but it is the Cross that shows us sin and life. I believe the Spirit convicts us the same way that Paul did in his epistles---by referring us to the Cross and how Jesus has loved us. Also, it's helpful to look at that name of the Spirit, "the Counselor", in a modern way. I don't know if you've ever been through counseling before, but if you have, you will understand this. We often look at the Counselor like He is an advisor or like a schoolteacher or guide, but if you think of counseling, you know that the counselor becomes your intimate friend, and that your counselor is someone who is personally interested in you, who is trying to help you, and who wants you to be healed and restored. The Holy Spirit is like this even moreso than any earthly counselor! Think of every person who has ever lovingly counseled you, and then realize that "how much more" is the Spirit the same for us! | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 188 Registered: 10-2002 |
Oh, U2bsda--- About convictions, how for certain people God seems to indicate they should do something, but for others He doesn't, I recommend reading the explanation that Larry Huntsperger gives in "The Grace Exchange". | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 61 Registered: 11-2004 |
Agapetos, Thank you for sharing. I totally agree with you - sin is not believing in Jesus. I will have to check out that book. It looks good! |
