Time To Wake Up

When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of its sin.   John 16:8

There’s a huge gulf between what we are and what God calls us to be. When the Holy Spirit enables us to see ourselves clearly, we quickly realize that righteousness is far beyond our reach and that without Christ, we’d be liable to the judgment and condemnation of God.

The first work of the Holy Spirit is to show us what’s wrong, so that we’ll see our need and be ready to listen to the gospel. This is never comfortable. Nobody likes to be wakened when they’re sleeping, but if there’s a fire in your house, you’ll be deeply grateful to the person who wakes you up. You may be angry at first, but as soon as you realize the danger you’re in, you’ll thank the person who warned you.

After the Second World War, the Allies set up a legal process for trying war criminals, and the hearings were held in the town of Nuremberg, Germany. The highest-ranking defendant was Hermann Göring. He sat in the courtroom as survivors of the most appalling violence were brought forward, and actual footage of the concentration camps in all their horror was shown.

After weeks of this, Göring still could not see how the cause he’d supported had been wrong. He felt there was reasonable justification for what he’d done, and that there was no good reason for judgment to be passed on him.

We hear a great deal today about “false guilt.” False guilt is an inappropriate feeling of guilt over something we did not do and for which we were not responsible. There is nothing useful about false guilt. It’s a snare of the enemy, and we need to expose it so we can be free from it.

But there is such a thing as true guilt, and it needs to be embraced. True guilt relates to sins we’ve committed, righteousness we haven’t fulfilled, and the judgment that’s due us on account of these things. True guilt is about facing reality and taking responsibility. A person who never discovers his or her true guilt will continue down the path of sin and never find reconciliation with God.

For further reading, see 2 Corinthians 7