As the years with God pass, I find myself profoundly altered...
I thought maybe I should expand on this a bit. Especially these days when many "Christians" are eager to promote an experience of God that is unlike anything described in the Bible, I want to testify to the fact that what God in His word says I can experience of Him is actually what I have experienced.
So, God says He will convict me (as a constituent of the world) of sin, righteousness and judgment (
John 16:8).
What's this like? Is it mere guiltiness, the prick of my conscience when I do wrong? No. When mere conscience is at work in me, my reflex is to hide, to obscure my wrongdoing from the view of others, to protect myself from the shame of my sinful actions. This is what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden when they sinned.
In contrast, when the Holy Spirit is convicting me, he works to bring sin to light, to expose it, not in order to cause shame, but to reconcile me to God against whom is all my sin, ultimately. The Spirit draws me back to God by pointing straight at my sin and calling it what it is, relentlessly doing so, in fact, squirm and deny his conviction though I might try to do. In his conviction of me, I am enabled to understand the lies that have brought me into bondage to sin and to forsake them for God's holiness-producing Truth. Under the Spirit's conviction of me, I am pressed to acknowledge my sin for what it is, not to humiliate me, but to liberate me from its fellowship-halting effect upon my relationship with God and to activate God's limitless forgiveness of my sin obtained for me by Jesus Christ's sacrifice for me on the cross.
Holy Spirit conviction is a daily occurrence for me. God is
perfectly holy and so there is, every day, always occasion for me, a sin-prone creature, to be convicted by His Spirit. His conviction is...quiet, not loud and haranguing, but deeply penetrating and powerful for all its lack of aggressive volume. The more I respond positively to his conviction, the more sensitive to it I am and the less often I am convicted by the Spirit. And as he has cleaned up the obvious, "big" stuff on the surface of my life, the deeper he moves, showing me secret corners in the "house" of my life in which darkness still resides.
This can be something as simple as the Spirit checking what I allow my mind to wander into in an idle moment brushing my teeth, or waiting in traffic at red light, or standing in line at the grocery store, etc.. I am to bring
every thought captive into obedience to Christ (
2 Corinthians 10:3-5), not allowing random thoughts, or vain imaginings (which can frequently migrate into darkness), or false narratives about others, or about situations, to play out in my mind unregulated. And so, when an ugly image or scene from, say, some old, rotten movie I watched years ago (but shouldn't have) comes unbidden to mind in an idle moment and I don't immediately bring it into obedience to God but idly spin the thing around in my head, poking it with my imagination, expanding it, even, in some morbidly fascinated (and sometimes sinful) way, the Spirit will interrupt what's happening with a strong sense of the wrongness of, or spiritual danger in, what I'm doing. Often, this takes the shape of the question "Who is this?" in my mind. From whom is my present thought, feeling, desire or action originating? If it isn't God, if it isn't the Holy Spirit, then it's me and this means I've moved out from under the Holy Spirit's control and need immediately to submit myself to him again. Confession of my sinful thinking is sometimes required, too (thankfully, by God's grace, more and more rarely).
In this experience, shame or guilt aren't the primary features, but a desire to protect my fellowship (intimate communion) with God. I don't want anything to get in the way between God and me. I don't want to hide from Him, ashamed, but crowd up close to Him, free of the stain and power of sin - a wonderful testament to the work of the Holy Spirit in me and the common experience of all God's children who live in constant love and submission to Him.
I want to underline how unlike the crazy, sensual pursuit of God that many "Christians" want to say is "experiencing God" my experience of Him, of His Spirit, actually is. I don't fall into fits of emotional hysteria, or drop to the floor in convulsions of "Spirit power," or jabber like a monkey; I don't pretend to spiritual "drunkenness," or a drug-induced high, or pretend God is some sort of spiritual jacuzzi in which I can "soak." Yuck. None of this stuff is of God. Instead, His life in me and in all of His children is revealed in their transformation that reveals more and more of Jesus and glorifies him.
Romans 8:29
29 For those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
2 Corinthians 4:6-11
6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;
8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
1 Corinthians 1:30-31
30 But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31 That, according as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord."
God is not interested in thrilling His children at every turn with sights, and sounds, and sensations, exciting their flesh rather than their spirit. He doesn't want a distant, ritualistic, institutional "interaction" with His children. He doesn't want His children occupied with moral living, with mere obedience to His commands. He wants fellowship - spiritual communion - with His children, obtained by spiritual means to a spiritual and eternal end.
Romans 8:5-15
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"
