The Pastor’s Pen

I encourage you to develop biblical convictions in place of personal preferences

While the conscience is our internal moral and spiritual warning mechanism gifted by God, He has also granted mankind the ability to consciously prioritise beliefs. We call the strongest of these beliefs convictions. Once again, there are two levels of conviction, the natural, and the Holy Spirit energised. Today we shall consider our natural responsibility to grow convictions.

Christians can be surprisingly vulnerable when it comes to confusing natural conscience with personal convictions, not to mention the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. So, it’s important to have some degree of clarity about these three distinctive facets of Christian living. We have the responsibility to both train our consciences and determine our strongest moral and spiritual beliefs.

By convictions, I’m referring to “the state of being convinced,” or a “fixed and strong belief.” Therefore, by biblical convictions, I mean convictions established from what the Bible actually says and illustrates. To be clear, conviction stands opposed to doubt, assumption, personal preference, and scepticism. These biblical convictions serve as the absolute index for spiritual and moral values in our lives; fuelling our conscience and behaviour.

Reality Check

We can’t deny that we’re capable of doing either a good or bad job of this. We educate our conscience and determine our strongest convictions based on acceptance of the literal truth of God’s Word, or not. There are no other options.

If we consider that our understanding of life, mankind, and eternity is superior to God’s understanding; then we will obviously promote our feelings and opinions to the highest ranking. On the other hand, if we yield to the Lord’s infinite superiority, we will adopt His truths, His moral purity, and His behavioural integrity to the highest ruling position in our lives.

Our 3 Step Response

First, as children of God, we agree with God when He says; “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). We simply think different to God! Therein lies our greatest and most costly weakness!

Second, as children of God, we choose to trust in the Lord with all our heart, and not to lean on our own understanding. In all our ways we seek to acknowledge him, looking to Him to make straight our paths (derived from Proverbs 3:5-6). 

Third, as children of God, we want for ourselves the same as Jesus prayed for His disciples. That God will “Sanctify them (us) in the truth; (acknowledging that) your word is truth” (John 17:17). This step is the death wish to self-opinion being authoritative in our thinking. Rather, God’s written Word takes the ruling seat.

From these three steps of faith we establish the basis for developing biblical convictions.

We agree that; “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). We believe in the absoluteness of the unseen realities God tells us about.

We agree that; “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof (conviction), for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). We believe that God’s written Word is the absolute template for all our convictions, for the correcting changes required to make us think like God, and for our education in living a righteous life as Jesus Christ did.

Today, I especially want to encourage you to surrender your convictions to God. Choose to let Him be God of your beliefs and the subsequent changed behaviours that must follow. In so doing, God will be glorified, you will be blessed, and others will be encouraged by your courageous faith.

 

Be encouraged to educate your conscience rightly

Growing a God honouring conscience, and responding to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, are two facets of Christian living worthy of your attention. Today we shall consider the conscience.

We usually think of the conscience in negative terms, however, it’s designed to function equally as a positive affirming mechanism; …their thoughts now accusing (negative), now even defending (positive) them (Romans 2:14-15 NIV).

As wonderful as the conscience is, it does not force or dictate the decisions we make. Error, tradition, human rationale, and wrong moral influences can all corrupt and prevent the conscience from working correctly (Colossians 2:6-8, 20-23). Paul explained to the Corinthians that his conscience could even send incorrect messages; “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent” (1 Corinthians 4:4 NIV).

How it works

Conscience is the engine that drives our emotions and feelings. When the conscience fires warning signals, the emotions experience negative feelings. Likewise, when conscience fires signals of affirmation, the emotions experience positive feelings (Romans 2:14-15).

Because conscience is a human mechanism (created by God), it requires training, and feeding with information to determine its values. It is continuously feeding on the values of your activities; good, neutral, and bad. It subconsciously extracts the values without you even being aware of what it’s doing. Therefore conscience, having silently been feed by you, establishes a dictionary (or contents page) of values, which it has collected from all your thoughts and activities.

These values are silently categorised into a moral order of priority, or significance, from weakest to strongest. This is important, because conscience activates and sends out signals based on the highest or strongest values in its list. Conscience does not determine the correctness or righteousness of its values, it only collects and works with the values you have fed it.

So, when the time arrives for your conscience to act, it will only fire out signals in keeping with the values you predominantly provided it with. Herein lies the conflict. You can say that you believe whatever you want, but your conscience has been feeding on what you read, what you listen to, what you watch, the influences of the company you keep, and what you think about mostly. It will show you exactly what is within yourself by responding based upon those accumulated values.

This is why it is so important for the Christian to input God’s truth, godly friendship, and God centred worship; so the conscience can assimilate His truth into its strongest and highest priorities (2 Timothy 2:15; Hebrews 10:24-25). This empowers our human conscience to fire out both warning and affirmation signals in keeping with God’s Word. Sanctification of we believers can be either enriched or damaged by our conscience being trained rightly or not, and by our surrender to authority of God’s Word, the Bible.

How efficiently the conscience functions is determined by the amount of truth we take in, by the degree of obedience to God’s Word, and by the degree to which we keep our conscience unstained by evil. It’s as Paul instructed concerning deacons, we all should “hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience” (1 Timothy 3:9). Meaning, our beliefs and living should not violate the truth we know from Scripture regarding our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Be encouraged to educate your conscience rightly, for the glory of God and for His blessing in our lives and those we influence.

 

I encourage you to be people who listen to conviction for Jesus Christ

The subject of conviction is spoken of little now-a-days. Never-the-less, conviction remains a primary activity of the Holy Spirit, whether recognised and acknowledged or not. Jesus, explaining to the disciples about the workings of the Holy Spirit said; “he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). Here, the Greek word used for ‘convict’ in the original Bible language means to admonish, convince, tell a fault, rebuke, or reprove. It’s the function of positively applying negative persuasion.
 
Here Jesus explained that the primary areas of interest for the Holy Spirit in this work are; “sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). So, Holy Spirit conviction has nothing to do with that new item you want to buy, the holiday you would like, the promising financial investment being offered, or gaining popularity and acceptance with people. Conviction is a spiritual work, addressing spiritual realities, with spiritual solutions and goals.
 
The writer of Hebrews tell us that; “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Here, the word used for ‘conviction’ means to give proof, evidence, and reproof. Faith in Jesus Christ is not grown in the vacuum of ignorance. Rather, the growing persuasion of evidence brings the weight of responsibility upon the soul, requiring a response. Thus, conviction usually works in conjunction with God’s Word (The Bible).
 
While conviction may engage the conscience to amplify its message, they are two different things. Yes, the human conscience is a spectacular mechanism built into everyone by God, but it does not and cannot produce conviction. Conscience is human based while conviction is Holy Spirit based. Conviction is a whole other level of spiritual engagement by the Lord. You see, the conscience can be wrongly educated, misinformed, even deceived; but the Holy Spirit is not susceptible to any of these weaknesses. 
 
Remember, Jesus said that when “the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). When the Spirit of the living God engages someone through conviction, there’s no mistake, no misrepresentation of Scripture, and no inaccuracy in the expression of divine truth. The recipient has no doubt as to the life changing seriousness of the matter at hand. The human participant is gripped by the realisation of sovereign intervention, and the responsibility to respond in surrender to the will of God. 
 
The apostle Paul explained to the Thessalonians; “our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). As Jesus informed the disciples “the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). Proclamation of, and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ is the central purpose for the Holy Spirit’s ministry. Likewise, Paul encouraged believers to “reach all the riches of full assurance (Conviction) of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ” (Colossians 2:2).
 
This is, after all, the work of God’s Spirit, to transition people from disbelief to belief, from disobedience to obedience, from indifference to submission, and from mediocrity to excellence. None of which comes natural to mankind. Without the penetrating voice of motivating conviction, we would most likely do and change little, if anything, for God.

I encourage you to listen to, and act upon the conviction of the Holy Spirit that grows out of the Word of God for the glory of Jesus Christ.

 

I encourage you to embrace change for God’s purposes

While we believers stand secure in God’s unchanging character, we need to deal with the reality of change in the world and within our personal lives. One of the many ironies of life is that while we may require others to change, we often think of ourselves as exempt. Although by nature we tend to resist change, it’s an inescapable part of life, especially the Christian life.

Sanctifying change is redemptive by nature; “now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:22). Change is at the heart of sanctification, it’s the purpose of God’s Word, and it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We sometimes sing as worship, the words penned by Eddie Espinosa;
    Change my heart oh God
    Make it ever true
    Change my heart oh God
    May I be like You

While expressing a genuine heart attitude towards God, these words also speak of our need for change through sanctification. Certainly, change in our thoughts, our beliefs, and feelings, are the most difficult, yet they are also the most needed. Our internal reasoning is the arena of our greatest battles, with the greatest potential for resistance and pain. But change we must if we want to live like Christ!

Paul, having undergone enormous change, cut it straight with the Roman Church; “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God”  (Romans 12:2). He recognised the necessity of ongoing internal change as the path of testing and discovering God’s will. Its sad how often Christians set boundaries for this vital ministry, unconsciously informing God of what He can and cannot change within them.

Change Flows Out of Salvation

You see, salvation was the spiritual metamorphosis that entered us into a life where “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV). This involves no small amount of growing pain as pride, ego, selfishness and inappropriate preferences are lovingly, yet determinately changed by the Holy Spirit. Resistance is futile. And rejection of this divine work of grace only proves that we were never redeemed in the first place, but we’re simply trying the ‘religious thing’ to see if it would give us what we wanted.

For the believer, we relinquish the role of deciding what should and should not change, and hand over that role to the Lord Jesus Christ. The choice is now out of our hands. We simply follow His lead, as He shows us in His Word, and convicts us by His Spirit. Often scary I agree, but necessary!

As humans, it’s all too easy to be “stiff-necked people,” who “resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51) as Israel has been guilty of. We do so to our peril, and to the demise of those who follow our example. Instead, as Christians; “the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Today, embrace change for God’s purposes. Doing so will bring Him glory, will flood your soul with refreshment, and will lead others to greater blessing as they follow your example.

 

Today I wish to encourage you to trust in the Lord’s unchanging character.

In the study of theology, we call this the immutability of God. As Job, in the midst of life’s most horrendous difficulties proclaimed of God; “he is unchangeable” (Job 23:13). God’s testimony of Himself is; “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6). Not only does God’s character not change, He is incapable of changing His nature, His mind, His will, or His purposes.

Unlike our world which is in constant flux; “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.” As God is so unlike mankind in this regard, He is totally dependable, always fulfilling what He says; “Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19).

The nature of unchangeableness

In order for change to occur, something has to be either added or taken away. Both are impossible with God, since He is perfect in holiness and glory! The fact is; there is nothing that could possibly be added to Him or subtracted from Him. Not only so, but God is perfectly consistent in His character. He has no variations in character or in the expressions of His character. Thus, God is not open to external influence, nor is He lacking any degree of internal uniformity.

Unchanging Lordship

God exercises the unchanging purpose of His will to manoeuvre human history to bring into being what He has always determined should be. “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him” (Daniel 2:21-22). Everything external to God, which is obviously under His sovereign care, is variable and changeable, but not God Himself who determines all things.

Application of immutability

As believers, we trustingly lean into the unchanging and determinative nature of God. We place our confidence in the trustworthiness of who God is and always shall be. The more changeable this world becomes, the more we embed our dependency in God’s unchanging character. Solomon says it well; “the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught” (Proverbs 3:26). Proven, trustworthy, and knowable; such is our unchanging Heavenly Father who we know through His Son “Jesus Christ (who also) is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
 
Realise that the unexpected pains wrongly inflicted upon us by others, which often bring unwanted changes, are not reflective of God’s character. Yet the Lord does use them to grow us closer to him and develop greater Christ-likeness. In spite of life’s pains, the Lord’s mercy is consistently seen in that “every good gift and every perfect gift (which) is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

The greatness of immutability

He who is the Ancient of Days, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; He whose unchangeableness is legendary in maintaining His dominion, upholding His righteousness, and displaying His glory.  To Him we cling. In Him alone we place our unreserved trust. Him we adore, and in Him we resolve to grow in faithfulness.
 
I encourage you today, as the Lord’s redeemed, to enthusiastically “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Let the world hear you celebrate the unchangeable character of our God!