The Switch…

To Joy (part 8) 

Going back to John 16:8, where Jesus talks of the Holy Spirit “convicting the world of guilt in regard to sin, etc.,” how exactly does the Holy Spirit convict people in the world?

Jesus gives the answer in verse 7: “Unless I go away, the Counselor (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” It’s to Jesus’ disciples that the Holy Spirit is sent, so it’s through his disciples, therefore, that “the world is convicted in regard to sin, etc.” 

The Spirit is not going directly to the world, because as Jesus pointed out earlier in John 14:17, “The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit because it does not know him.” What convicts people, then, is not by the Holy Spirit working directly in their minds, it’s by what the Holy Spirit is doing in our minds. 

It’s through us that the world is convicted in regard to sin, because of what the Holy Spirit has done in our minds regarding sin. We find ourselves hating sin, not only in what it’s done and doing to us personally, but also in what we see it’s done and doing to people all around us. Our conviction about the damage sin does is what stirs us deeply to want to open other people’s eyes to the damage it’s doing. And that’s how the Holy Spirit gets through to people about sin, by getting through to us about sin. 

“Sin” is the destructive force in our world that hides and wrecks the loving, joy filled beautiful beings God created us to be. And the Holy Spirit helps Jesus’ disciples to see that, and so clearly that it presses on our minds to live what God created us to be so people get to see it being lived in us. And if they hate us for it, or steel their minds against it, Jesus said people would hate us, but that too is how the Holy Spirit gets to people through us, by creating a reaction in people’s minds, where a reaction didn’t exist before. 

What a switch to joy it can be, then, realizing the Holy Spirit is doing things in us that will create a reaction. Good reaction or hate filled reaction doesn’t matter. What matters is that people see something different in us that hopefully shakes them awake a bit “in regard to sin” too…(continues Friday)