Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit in John 16:8-12 (Amplified) saying, "And when He comes, He will convict and convince the world and bring demonstration to it about sin and about righteousness (uprightness of heart and right standing with God) and about judgment, about sin, because they do not believe in Me (trust in, rely on, and adhere to Me), about righteousness (uprightness of heart and right standing with God), because I go to My Father, and you will see Me no longer about judgment, because the ruler (evil, genius, prince of this world) satan is judged and condemned and sentence is already passed upon him." Verse 12 goes on, "I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them or to take them upon you or to grasp them now."
Jesus was speaking about a future event. He was speaking about after His death and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When He came, the Holy Spirit would have the ministry of the new birth. He was to convict and convince the world about sin and He was to convict and convince the believer (as they came to believe in Him) about righteousness. He would deal with the hearts of men and bring us to the place of salvation.
The only way to bring men to repentance is to deal with the heart of man. When Jesus speaks about the heart, He's speaking about the spirit of man. Notice how the Holy Spirit will speak to the hearts about sin because they don't believe in Jesus. He will speak about righteousness because Jesus is to go to the Father and now righteousness is based on Him and not on Law and sacrifice. He will speak about judgment because satan has been judged.
This condition of the heart is based on sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. If you were unsaved, then the Holy Spirit would convict your heart of your condition and reveal Jesus as the way out of sin. If we were basing our righteousness on the Law and sacrifice, then He would reveal Jesus as the final sacrifice that paid for everything. If we needed to understand the judgment, then He would show into our spirit how judgment will befall everyone who rejects Jesus and how Jesus was judged for all who accept Him as their Lord and ruler. Since satan is judged, condemned and sentenced already, it's easy to see what judgment will befall all who choose him as their ruler or way of life.
The heart or spirit of man is the real life of man. Conviction of sin and righteousness come into a man's heart. The problem for the believer is that we don't always listen to our heart. John wrote about the heart of the believer (under the direction of the Holy Spirit) in 1John 3:19-20 (Amplified) saying, "By this, (Love), we shall come to know (perceive, recognize, and understand) that we are of the truth, we can reassure (quiet, conciliate and pacify) our hearts in His presence." Verse 20 says, "Whenever our hearts in (tormenting) self-accusation makes us feel guilty and condemn us. (For we are in God's hands) For He is above and greater than our conscience (our hearts) and He knows (perceives and understands) everything (nothing is hidden from Him)." Verse 21 says, "And beloved, if our conscience (our hearts) do not accuse us (if they do not make us feel guilty and condemn us) we have confidence (complete assurance and boldness) before God."
The condition of the heart is based upon the conviction of the Holy Spirit according to John 16:8 (Amplified) which says that He just doesn't convict us of sin, but also about our right standing (righteousness) with before God. In 1John 3:20 (Amplified) we read that our hearts "in tormenting self-accusation, make us feel guilty and condemn us." If our hearts aren't sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, then we will continue to walk under the self-accusing voice of our own spirit (or heart) and not the renewed, born again voice of the Holy Spirit now in our spirit. The Holy Spirit will convict and convince us, too, that we're now in right standing with God through Jesus.
The Father said that our sins and iniquity He would remember no more. We, on the other hand, do remember them. We remember all the dumb things we did before we knew Jesus. They're still in our conscience minds. They still make us feel unclean and unfit to come into the presence of our Father. This is the condition of the heart only the Holy Spirit can fix.
1John 3:21 (Amplified) says, "And beloved, if our consciences (our hearts) do not accuse us (if they do not make us feel guilty and condemn us) we have confidence (complete assurance and boldness) before God."
This condition of the heart is the most common heart problem in the Church. Do I believe my self-accusing heart about the man of the my past, or do I believe the new heart and the truth of God's Word about my conviction of right standing with God? It almost seems sacrilegious to say that your heart doesn't accuse you anymore. Some see it as being puffed up or proud to declare that our righteousness is in Him.
Romans 10:9-10 (Amplified) may be the most well known scriptures used to lead people to salvation (maybe even that led to our own salvation). The main stay of these scriptures has to do with your heart. Verse 9 says, "Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Verse 10 says, "For with the heart a person believes (adheres to, trust in, relies on) Christ and so is justified (declared righteous, acceptable to God) and the mouth he confesses (declares openly and speaks out freely his faith) and confirms (his) salvation."
You can tell the condition of your heart by the words that come from your mouth. The symptoms of a "heart attack" is your heart condemning you like in 1John 3:20 (Amplified) which says "our hearts, in tormenting, self-accusation, makes us feel guilty and condemns us." These are the tell tale signs of a heart that hasn't yielded to the Holy Spirit as He reveals the fullness of righteousness to us in Jesus.
Only by the Holy Spirit, through the Word and a hearing heart, will we ever walk above who we were and walk in the fullness of who we are. Our heart condition can never be healed by the flesh or the religion of the world. It's only the Holy Spirit Who will bring to light the fullness of Jesus.
Our hearts (because we won't forget who we were), keep telling us we still have to pay, in one way or another for our past by working hard to be good, by going to the mission fields or by giving more, etc. These are conditions of our hearts that continue condemning and accusing us and keeping us from walking in the full freedom of the sacrifice of our Lamb,Jesus.
We must allow the Holy Spirit to override the condemnation of the past life and make us more aware of our new life. He is the heart medicine Who can heal and make new our spiritual heart condition. It's hard for us to believe and receive the fullness of God's pardon without feeling as though there's something else we must do to be deserving of it. There's nothing we can do to deserve it. That's why it is comes by grace. When our hearts receive this grace with thanks, we are made free.
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