Remembering What We Should Forget & Forgetting What We Should Remember
We need to understand the important distinction between conviction and condemnation. If you don’t understand this distinction, then you are probably going to spend a long time wasting a lot of energy on false guilt. Conviction, the conviction of the Holy Spirit who abides in us as God’s people, is when you feel bad for a sin that has not yet been confessed. That is the key. He convicts us until we come to that point when we confess the sin and turn from our wicked ways. Condemnation feels very similar but the difference is that it is feeling guilt over confessed sin.
For When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong
God loves to use the weak to lead the strong. God loves to use the foolish to make the wise look foolish. The fact that God can use those whom we disqualify from the running, those who are not charismatic enough, or smart, or fit, or beautiful enough, those who are not rich or powerful enough, testifies as to how great our God is. What this tells us is that God can use you for great things in the Kingdom, no matter who you are, as long as you live a life of worship and surrender to Him.
No Fruit, No Proof
When we hear the word repent it is not simply to turn away from sin and turn back to God – no – in this process of turning away true repentance is actually changing our mind about our sin. It is recognising that our sin is against God first and this should grieve us – we should feel sorrow when we sin because we break God’s law. We should actually mourn our sin because it is that very sin that sent innocent Jesus to death. When we recognize the weight of our sin this should lead us to change our mind about it as well as our interaction with future sin.