Be ye separate!
This week I want to continue the thought on separation. We have looked at the reasons why it is important.
- It helps us to define things.
- It helps us to step out of confusion.
- It helps us to process properly.
This week I want to look at: Separation can lead to a conviction.
John 16:8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin.
The Holy Spirit has the responsibility to convict people of sin. Conviction requires a response and that response is repentance. How will people repent if they don’t know what they need to repent off? Separation brings clarity and clarity works towards conviction. If you are still doing what you did before you got convicted, you might be trying to turn a page, but you have not been convicted. Real conviction leads to repentance or repentance is the proper response to conviction.
Where are we missing it? The reality is that the message most people hear today is tied to the benefit of God and not to the fear of God. The fear of God will bring about change in your life.
When you separate things you tend to see clearly. Conviction is birthed when clarity is gained. When people struggle to find clarity they struggle to step into conviction. What is right and what is wrong? They remain under confusion until clarity is reached. We play into the enemy’s hand by staying confused. The enemy will offer them a compromise just so that they stay in confusion and not step into conviction. Compromise is the golden highway to staying in bondage.
In the old days, it sounded as if the preachers were only preaching against sin. There is not a lot of that preaching going on today. Were they doing that or were they separating things so we could find clarity that would lead us to conviction? In a day where the church has become a place where consumers are created instead of disciples, confusion reigns. People stay in their sin and are never convicted because we have stopped to bring clarity to what is sin and what is not. We have given in to the message of political correctness and in doing so we have bred confusion.
It breaks my heart when I hear superstars saying: “If you are a real Christian you would support abortion”. These are the people that speak to this generation and we are quiet?
Wrong is right and right is now wrong. It is time to take back the message and preach again that Jesus died for the sin of the world, not the comfort of the world.
Without conviction, you become a repeat offender. Until you are convicted, you will not change, you can not change. Why do we need clarity? So that true conviction can happen.
The promise for real repentance and conviction is still the same. You can be born again and become a new creation.
2 Cor 5:17 If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old thing has passed away, behold ALL things have become new.
Why would we compromise the message when there is so much freedom to be gained. There is still power in the Blood of Jesus to change a life. We use to sing the hymn:
“Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”
Come out and be ye separate!
