Judge your thoughts before they judge you...
Yes, you made a bad choice and acted on it. Your life is interrupted as an emotions erupts into sudden awareness. Something is not right as we are shaken and almost frozen – sensing shame. Thoughts race as we realize that we are in trouble, that we crossed that line and guilt surrounds us.
Our thoughts direct our choice, but the choice is always revisited in our thoughts.
While choice and action is rethought, it grows into a judging thought and sets the stage for the future consequence – open door to self condemnation.
Proverb 21:2 “A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.”
The wisdom of scripture helps us understand God’s direction in our daily decisions and actions
When the Lord weighs the heart, He knows our “intent” of the thoughts and how when acting on them, they lead unto the consequence.
When we realize our thoughts are discomforting and constantly coming to our remembrance, it is time to change how we think about thoughts. As a first step, it is important to understand how CONVICTION and CONDEMNATION interplays with our thoughts.
Conviction
- Draws us TO God
- Soft whisper of impending sin
- Feel need of forgiveness
- Seek help outside ourself
- Stand in God's mercy & forgivness
Condemnation
- Run & Hide from God
- Harsh accusation of error
- Feel impossible forgiveness
- Withdraw within ourself
- Cower in self judgement & shame
Conviction is...
Conviction is the spiritual check or warning we experience in the moment of a thought or action. This can be triggered by our moral beliefs or as a Christ follower, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
While we have a moral understanding of right and wrong, it is quickly overridden by our own desires, the culture, and circumstances.
The Holy Spirit’s leading is a gentle tug aligned with God’s Word and unless we are listening, this is often overlooked.
Condemnation is...
Condemnation quickly follows conviction and follows a pattern we hide under guilt or shame. The world says you are guilty, the culture, the society, you social group and worst of all…. You say you are guilty.
But condemnation does not stop there. It whispers lies that you have no way out, you are hopelessly entangled, you cannot be forgiven and it goes on.
Even your self-talk repeats and confirms all the negatives and you find guilt everywhere you turn.
Because YOU made a bad choice and acted on it, condemnation seems justified and deserved. The pit you are slipping into gets deeper as the whispers turn into mocking voices. How could you, a Christian, do such a thing and this time you went too far. You are condemned, guilty, judged and already serving sentence. Finally the ultimate lie, “even God cannot forgive you.”
What we need to do...
“There is, then, now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit;” Romans 8:1
CONVICTION precedes CONDEMNATION but we so often miss God as the things of this world not only blind our eyes but we feel we can handle it. We are distracted and deceived not seeing the future sin our choice will allow.
Through the urgency of circumstances, our judgement is tainted and looking to God is put aside in our need to fix it ourselves. We simply do not ask for the wisdom we need from God. (James 1:5)
(the Comforter / Holy Spirit) “and having come, He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment; “ John 16:8
God is always speaking to us through His Holy Spirit but we need to be listening for the loving voice of Godly conviction.
Holy Spirit will always align with God’s Word and we need to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. (James 1:22)
