John 8:47
One of the main functions of prayer is to bring about the conviction of sin so that repentance and confession can happen.This is the only thing that leads to a truly transformed life.
A genuine believer acknowledges that being a sinner is what he is, and seeks the Lord in order to agree with what God shows him as the pathway to confession.
Unfortunately, in our blind state, which we all were in before conversion, none of us saw our true condition. Somehow God got our attention enough for us to invite Christ into our lives, and so conversion happened. But that is not the end of the Lord’s revelation of our condition, it is only the beginning. For as long as we live on this earth, as we meditate on scripture, God will reveal our true condition to us.
A person who is not willing to have this revelation happen is proving that real faith is not developing, which is what Jesus says in John, Chapter 8. There are many things that help us to have our condition revealed. One thing we can do is to notice our deeds, which then leads us to ask the Lord to reveal the cause.
In Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus says that fruit comes off of a tree—if there is a fruit, there’s a root. It is time for believers to be more than a fruit inspector, because God wants to deal with the whole tree, the condition of our heart the way He sees it.
Another thing we can do is to watch our responses to what other people do. Other people in our lives trigger the resentments that we are carrying around. If we have a heart full of hidden anger, but are not aware of it, it will show up by our getting irritated at others. Now, we know that when we get irritated it feels as if the other person is doing something wrong to us. But Jesus says “Take the log out of your eye before you take the splinter out of their eye.” (Matthew. 7:5)
This means that when someone else drives us nuts, this is a mirror showing OUR condition. When your hair stands on condition. Go to the Lord and ask Him to reveal to you WHY the other person is driving you crazy! This will bring the ability to SEE through God’s eyes what dwells in your heart, so that confession will relieve you of the sin in this area of your life.
Through this method, we gain holiness and please the Lord. Sometimes the problem is really the other person’s. If it is, we won’t be reacting to it in a negative way. We can then minister to the other person. Look to your own condition first, because only then can we tell for sure if the other person really has a problem.
The tragedy is, many people are avoiding looking at themselves at all. This is a very dangerous attitude to take. God says “live in a constant state of repentance and confession.” Jesus came in order to save us!
Conviction of sin and being guilty of sins are not the same thing. Conviction of sin is produced by the incoming of the Holy Spirit because conscience is promptly made to look at God’s demands and the whole nature cries out, in some form or another, “What must I do to be saved?
Oswald Chambers
We shall find over and over again that God will send us shuddering to our knees every time we realize what sin is, and instead of it increasing hardness in us towards the men and women who are living in sin, the Spirit of God will use it as a means of bringing us to the dust before Him in vicarious intercession that God will save them as He has saved us.Oswald Chambers
As long as Jesus Christ will remain the ‘meek and mild and gentle Jesus’ I will listen to Him. But immediately if He sets His face against my particular sin, my unrighteousness, my self-indulgence, I am going to have no more of Him; then the nemesis comes, and I realize that I am siding with the forces that are against Jesus Christ.
Oswald Chambers
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