Your Blind Spot (4)

“May…the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you.” Ps 19:14 NLT

Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came He would convict us of sin. But conviction is not the same as “getting caught.” When we get caught doing wrong we feel pain, but it’s not necessarily conviction over sin. Often it’s just embarrassment over how others are thinking about us. If we thought no one would ever know, we wouldn’t be in pain. And conviction isn’t the same thing as fear of punishment. Conviction is when you get a glimpse of what you’re capable of: “How did I become the kind of person who can lie, cheat on a test, have an affair, claim credit for what I didn’t do, act cowardly instead of courageously, or use people for my own ends?” These aren’t questions you’d normally ask yourself. The Bible says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light” (Jn 3:19 NIV). When God is at work in your life, the pain isn’t about other people knowing, or even about the consequences. That’s all external. The pain of conviction is internal—it’s over who you are. Unless your car windshield is clean, you run the risk of ending up in a ditch. And you can’t clean it yourself while you’re driving—that’s why you have windshield wipers. Similarly, the Holy Spirit’s job is to reveal sin, let you repent of it, and cleanse you so that you can go where God wants to take you in life. Each day you need to pray, “Lord, send as much light as I can stand. Clean off my windshield so I can see more clearly. Cleanse me.”

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