December 19, 2007 FB
I. Introduction
This little article will attempt to show how our new nature and our old nature war against each other (Rom. 7:23) specifically in the area of conviction by the Holy Spirit, and help explain how to win this war.
I. Introduction
This little article will attempt to show how our new nature and our old nature war against each other (Rom. 7:23) specifically in the area of conviction by the Holy Spirit, and help explain how to win this war.
Have you noticed, like I have, that when you are listening to a sermon, or when another Christian says something that cuts to your heart, a lot of times you take offense and say to yourself “This guy is wrong about me,” or “This doesn’t apply to me because my situation is different”?
This experience is evidence of conviction, and conviction is a main area in which our old nature fights against our new nature, and sadly it must be stated that the vast majority of the time the old nature comes out the winner. One quick word of caution: Although this article is not intended for any certain people(s), this experience of conviction may happen to you as you read this.
1. Inward character
First let’s take the area of inward character (personal habits and shortcomings) and see how the conviction war applies.
When a new truth is presented to you about dealing with a personal problem or shortcoming and it applies to you, often times the reaction is to become angry and dismiss the truth. You then try to find ways to explain why it doesn’t apply to you. This is wrong because your reaction is showing that you believe the truth is untrue.
Another reaction is to hear the truth, accept it, and then rationalize it away. This is the worst one because you know and accept it as truth and yet you still find a way to make it not apply to you.
Let’s take an example of a preacher teaching on pride. He uses an illustration that shows evidence of pride in someone’s life, and this hits on your exact situation in which you show a characteristic of pride. Now either you become angry and say to yourself “This is wrong and so I shouldn’t believe him because I’m not that way,” or you receive it as truth and say to yourself “Yes this does kind of apply to me, but my situation is different because of this reason or that reason, so it can’t actually apply to me.”
Or let’s say that one of your friends tells you that they have noticed you get angry when someone asks you to do a specific task in the church. You can get angry at the person, dismiss it as being judgmental, and then let yourself forget their advice. Or you may rationalize their advice and say to yourself “I am allowed to get upset because this task is not something that I am supposed to be doing.”
In both cases this is a plain example of the new nature giving you conviction about the problem and the old nature feeling it, not liking the feeling, and finding excuses to not deal with the problem.
2. Outward conduct
Now let’s look at the area of outward conduct (relating to the church and the world) and see how it applies to the conviction war.
A. Service in the church
When the truth is presented to you about serving in your local church you can have different reactions to this truth. Let’s say that you have known what your spiritual gift is for a long time, and you have used it in the church, but you have recently neglected using it. One of your friends in the church notices and encourages you to get back to using the gift God gave you. Now you can have two negative reactions: The first is that you can blow up and say “Leave me alone, I’m taking a break,” or “I don’t’ feel like using it right now, get off my back.” The second reaction is that you can receive the advice gladly but then rationalize it away saying to yourself “Well, they are right but I don’t think that I should serve right now because I just had this happen,” or, “I am going to in the future so I don’t need to right now.” In both cases your old nature has given you excuses to not partake in the wonderful privilege of using your God given gifts.
B. Conduct in the world
An evident truth about living in the world is that Christians must constantly portray Christ to the lost through action (holiness) and speech (evangelism). This is the only way that Christ can be glorified, and when believers do not show themselves set apart they take the beautiful and glorious name of Jesus, the only name given for salvation (Acts 4:12), the only name that is above all names and the name that every knee will bow to (Phil. 2:9-11), and we degrade it to ordinary and mundane.
Holiness
Holiness is being set apart from the world to God. The more you let God work in your life, the more you will be set apart to him and others will notice. The most important times to be aware of the fact that we are set apart are the times that we are out in the world when people are watching our behavior.
Let’s say that you are at work, your boss notices that you have been pretty loose about your observance of the job rules, and tells you to straighten up. You can tell by now that there are always at least two different negative reactions. First you get angry and try to make up excuses for not obeying telling yourself “No way, I’m not gonna obey. I’ve been doing the job this way for months and it hasn’t affected my work.” Second you will rationalize it and find any excuse like; “I have to do it this way because I had an injury several years ago,” or you might say “Well, I need to get the job done properly and following those rules makes it impossible because of this and that.”
Evangelism
When is it ever not a good time to cultivate sharing the Gospel (2 Cor. 6:2)? You know that you should be doing it, and even if it’s not sharing the actual Gospel message you can still point another to Christ little by little. Let’s say that an opportunity to plant seeds comes up because one of your co-workers and fellow believers starts to lay the ground work for sharing the gospel to someone at work, and then they ask you to help. Two reactions: One is that you get angry and say to yourself “How dare they ask me to help. I don’t need to witness to anyone unless I start it.” Two is that you rationalize it away and tell yourself something like “He is doing the job of laying seeds, so he should be the one who does the reaping.”
In all times of being in the Church or in the world and being convicted to work on something, there are always many possible ways that the old nature will try to keep you from obeying what you know is the right thing to do. The two main ways are to get angry and dismiss the truth, or to rationalize it away until it doesn’t apply to you.
There is always, and only, one proper way to react to every Biblically sound conviction and it will be shown below.
Ending the war
The key to overcoming the conviction war is to realize that the new nature has no power to overcome the old nature. It is only there to convict and to act as a mediator through which the Holy Spirit can lead you into truth. When you get convicted the old nature is quick to jump into your conscience and start making up endless lies to keep you from dealing with the truth of God’s word.
Just like when you realized how bad off you are as a sinner in need of a savior, now once you realize that you are just as bad off without letting God work in and through you, you can now deal with the war of conviction.
The only proper way to deal with conviction is to take the truth with humility, find a practical way to work on it and then work on it, make reparations with God and others if necessary, and to rely on God for strength. Throughout all of these steps it is of utmost importance to keep in prayer.
Living by faith
You probably have heard the expression “Let go and let God.” Well, in the area of personal conviction this phrase cannot be supported by the Bible. To let go is to let loose something that was previously held on to. If you just let go of something it has no place to go and you leave it vulnerable. When you were saved you did not just let go of trusting in your own effort to save you. You put your complete trust in Christ. In the same manner, the only thing that God can use for working on convictions is our complete trust. We must put our trust only in God and then continue to completely trust Him to cultivate righteousness in us. This is the only way to deal with conviction, and it is exceedingly liberating! “The righteous one will live by faith (Hab. 2:4; Heb. 10:38)”
One word of caution: If you don't do anything but trust God, He won't work in or through you (Jas. 2:17). You must be trusting that God will bless your efforts for Him (Phil. 4:9).
Growing in Grace
As you start to seek out a way to deal with conviction your conscience will probably already be telling you what you should do. This can be an effective tool except that our consciences are seared by sin, and it cannot be completely trusted. The Bible is the only source from which we can find the steps to working on a conviction. In no other source can you find the correct, and perfect, manner in which to work on a conviction.
God graciously has given us His word and it contains the steps for proper Christian living. God has promised that His word will work in our hearts if we let it, and we must allow God's word to feed us so that we can grow closer to Him through His grace (2 Pet. 3:18).
Nehemiah Ryan © 2007
This experience is evidence of conviction, and conviction is a main area in which our old nature fights against our new nature, and sadly it must be stated that the vast majority of the time the old nature comes out the winner. One quick word of caution: Although this article is not intended for any certain people(s), this experience of conviction may happen to you as you read this.
II. The War
There are two areas in which the Bible is used to teach, reprove, correct, and train believers in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16,17). First (1) is the inward character of a Christian, and second (2) is the outward conduct in the world and in the Church. The Bible is God’s tool for the believer to root out sinful actions in both of these areas of the Christian walk, but the old nature always makes this extremely difficult.1. Inward character
First let’s take the area of inward character (personal habits and shortcomings) and see how the conviction war applies.
When a new truth is presented to you about dealing with a personal problem or shortcoming and it applies to you, often times the reaction is to become angry and dismiss the truth. You then try to find ways to explain why it doesn’t apply to you. This is wrong because your reaction is showing that you believe the truth is untrue.
Another reaction is to hear the truth, accept it, and then rationalize it away. This is the worst one because you know and accept it as truth and yet you still find a way to make it not apply to you.
Let’s take an example of a preacher teaching on pride. He uses an illustration that shows evidence of pride in someone’s life, and this hits on your exact situation in which you show a characteristic of pride. Now either you become angry and say to yourself “This is wrong and so I shouldn’t believe him because I’m not that way,” or you receive it as truth and say to yourself “Yes this does kind of apply to me, but my situation is different because of this reason or that reason, so it can’t actually apply to me.”
Or let’s say that one of your friends tells you that they have noticed you get angry when someone asks you to do a specific task in the church. You can get angry at the person, dismiss it as being judgmental, and then let yourself forget their advice. Or you may rationalize their advice and say to yourself “I am allowed to get upset because this task is not something that I am supposed to be doing.”
In both cases this is a plain example of the new nature giving you conviction about the problem and the old nature feeling it, not liking the feeling, and finding excuses to not deal with the problem.
2. Outward conduct
Now let’s look at the area of outward conduct (relating to the church and the world) and see how it applies to the conviction war.
A. Service in the church
When the truth is presented to you about serving in your local church you can have different reactions to this truth. Let’s say that you have known what your spiritual gift is for a long time, and you have used it in the church, but you have recently neglected using it. One of your friends in the church notices and encourages you to get back to using the gift God gave you. Now you can have two negative reactions: The first is that you can blow up and say “Leave me alone, I’m taking a break,” or “I don’t’ feel like using it right now, get off my back.” The second reaction is that you can receive the advice gladly but then rationalize it away saying to yourself “Well, they are right but I don’t think that I should serve right now because I just had this happen,” or, “I am going to in the future so I don’t need to right now.” In both cases your old nature has given you excuses to not partake in the wonderful privilege of using your God given gifts.
B. Conduct in the world
An evident truth about living in the world is that Christians must constantly portray Christ to the lost through action (holiness) and speech (evangelism). This is the only way that Christ can be glorified, and when believers do not show themselves set apart they take the beautiful and glorious name of Jesus, the only name given for salvation (Acts 4:12), the only name that is above all names and the name that every knee will bow to (Phil. 2:9-11), and we degrade it to ordinary and mundane.
Holiness
Holiness is being set apart from the world to God. The more you let God work in your life, the more you will be set apart to him and others will notice. The most important times to be aware of the fact that we are set apart are the times that we are out in the world when people are watching our behavior.
Let’s say that you are at work, your boss notices that you have been pretty loose about your observance of the job rules, and tells you to straighten up. You can tell by now that there are always at least two different negative reactions. First you get angry and try to make up excuses for not obeying telling yourself “No way, I’m not gonna obey. I’ve been doing the job this way for months and it hasn’t affected my work.” Second you will rationalize it and find any excuse like; “I have to do it this way because I had an injury several years ago,” or you might say “Well, I need to get the job done properly and following those rules makes it impossible because of this and that.”
Evangelism
When is it ever not a good time to cultivate sharing the Gospel (2 Cor. 6:2)? You know that you should be doing it, and even if it’s not sharing the actual Gospel message you can still point another to Christ little by little. Let’s say that an opportunity to plant seeds comes up because one of your co-workers and fellow believers starts to lay the ground work for sharing the gospel to someone at work, and then they ask you to help. Two reactions: One is that you get angry and say to yourself “How dare they ask me to help. I don’t need to witness to anyone unless I start it.” Two is that you rationalize it away and tell yourself something like “He is doing the job of laying seeds, so he should be the one who does the reaping.”
III. Peace
Having peace about conviction comes at any time when a truth of the Bible is presented to us and we at once feel saddened about this truth. Being saddened is one of the Holy Spirit’s ways of getting our attention to work on something and, when it is worked on, it will always result in the benefit of the believer (2 Cor. 7:9).In all times of being in the Church or in the world and being convicted to work on something, there are always many possible ways that the old nature will try to keep you from obeying what you know is the right thing to do. The two main ways are to get angry and dismiss the truth, or to rationalize it away until it doesn’t apply to you.
There is always, and only, one proper way to react to every Biblically sound conviction and it will be shown below.
Ending the war
The key to overcoming the conviction war is to realize that the new nature has no power to overcome the old nature. It is only there to convict and to act as a mediator through which the Holy Spirit can lead you into truth. When you get convicted the old nature is quick to jump into your conscience and start making up endless lies to keep you from dealing with the truth of God’s word.
Just like when you realized how bad off you are as a sinner in need of a savior, now once you realize that you are just as bad off without letting God work in and through you, you can now deal with the war of conviction.
The only proper way to deal with conviction is to take the truth with humility, find a practical way to work on it and then work on it, make reparations with God and others if necessary, and to rely on God for strength. Throughout all of these steps it is of utmost importance to keep in prayer.
Living by faith
You probably have heard the expression “Let go and let God.” Well, in the area of personal conviction this phrase cannot be supported by the Bible. To let go is to let loose something that was previously held on to. If you just let go of something it has no place to go and you leave it vulnerable. When you were saved you did not just let go of trusting in your own effort to save you. You put your complete trust in Christ. In the same manner, the only thing that God can use for working on convictions is our complete trust. We must put our trust only in God and then continue to completely trust Him to cultivate righteousness in us. This is the only way to deal with conviction, and it is exceedingly liberating! “The righteous one will live by faith (Hab. 2:4; Heb. 10:38)”
One word of caution: If you don't do anything but trust God, He won't work in or through you (Jas. 2:17). You must be trusting that God will bless your efforts for Him (Phil. 4:9).
Growing in Grace
As you start to seek out a way to deal with conviction your conscience will probably already be telling you what you should do. This can be an effective tool except that our consciences are seared by sin, and it cannot be completely trusted. The Bible is the only source from which we can find the steps to working on a conviction. In no other source can you find the correct, and perfect, manner in which to work on a conviction.
God graciously has given us His word and it contains the steps for proper Christian living. God has promised that His word will work in our hearts if we let it, and we must allow God's word to feed us so that we can grow closer to Him through His grace (2 Pet. 3:18).
Nehemiah Ryan © 2007
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