Condemnation Versus Conviction

Condemnation Versus Conviction

There’s another area of interpretation necessary when considering your weaknesses: condemnation versus conviction.

How do you feel when you look at your weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes?

Do they make you feel like giving up? Like you’re worthless or incapable of change? That’s condemnation. You’ve passed final judgment and essentially condemned yourself to death.

Or are the feelings more like fuel to a fire than a hammer to the head? Do you regret your mistakes enough not to repeat them? Do your failures make you not want to give up but rather try all the harder? Then what you’re feeling is probably conviction.

Both condemnation and conviction will feel similarly painful. But it’s what they lead you to do that will determine whether looking at your weaknesses is a waste of time or a powerful method for pursuing the life that matters.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. —2 Corinthians 7:10