Conviction of Sin

Nothing creates a love for God in the human heart like a genuine conviction of our sins. God’s universe was created in perfect beauty. Every expression of life was absolute perfection. It was a "Garden of Eden." The very term "Garden of Eden" is universally used for the utopia of the highest order. Sin marred that beauty and the downward spiral began. Everything that is less than perfect is that way because of sin. From the fatherless child to the broken dream, the crushed heart of a lover, or the sick face of disease, it is nothing but a picture of sin in living color. All of us are born and shaped by this plague. The best of human kind have sinned.

The life and death of the Son of God was all about sin. He said, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Luke 5:32 The golden text of our infallible Book is the heart of our Father and His gift. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) If sin were so terrible and its consequence so dark that the Eternal Son would step out of eternity into the realm of time and space to die as a sacrifice, we must develop the proper view of sin. No person can love God as he or she ought if they do not rightly view sin.

Jesus reminded us in one of His great experiences of this fact. He said of a very sinful woman … "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke 7:47) What a contrast this woman’s conviction of sin was compared to today’s sin-friendly church. No wonder all we are producing is a lot of religion. Under great scorn from the master of this house, this prostitute had entered to wash and anoint the Savior’s feet. Tears were freely flowing and sorrow for sin was manifest in all her action. She was there to anoint Him for His death and she knew it was for her sins that He would die. No man or woman will ever be truly converted until they understand their miserable sinfulness.

There is no sin or darkness that ever invades the church more serious than to obscure the difference between the Holy Things and the profane. The Prophet Ezekiel wrote by the Holy Spirit, "Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them." (Ezekiel 22:26) John the Revelator spoke the same basic truth with different emphasis. He stated again by the Holy Ghost, "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Revelation 22:19) I love the words added by John to identify the author, Jesus Christ, "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22:20)

There is no question that to add or subtract from the truth of God is serious business. Sin must be identified clearly and strongly but always in the context of "grace to cleanse."
Conviction of our sinful nature and every sinful act of our life by the Word of God and His Holy Spirit is liberating. When the Spirit is allowed to truly identify sin and its expressions in our old man, we are made sick of our sins. "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (2 Corinthians 7:10)

If we really see ourselves as sin has been identified in us, we will love Him with all of our heart because He offered us His grace in spite of our sins. He loved us when we were totally unlovable. It was sin alone that made us unlovable and we should learn to hate sin with the same degree that crucified the Holy Son of God.

If you are asking the Lord to help you love Him more and with a deeper soul surrender, start by asking Him to reveal the truth about sin. When you see sin at the level of Calvary’s dark misery and the depth of Hell’s eternal suffering, you cannot help but to love Him with an everlasting love. He took my place because of my sins and now I am going to love Him with a passion that controls all my life. Conviction of sin is when I can look at sin like He did while hanging on the cross. Holy Ghost conviction is a God-like understanding of sin.