Five differences between conviction and condemnation. From a distance,
they can look alike. In fact a lot of times people say, it feels like it's the same but they're not
the same and today you're going to learn about five of those differences and how to differentiate
conviction and condemnation. It will help you in developing relationship with the Holy Spirit
as well as growing spiritually with God. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to convict the
world of unbelief. Also He comes to convict the world of sin of unbelief. He comes to convict the
world of righteousness and of judgment. Primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bring conviction
and many people do not know the difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and condemnation
of the devil. The first one is conviction is specific and condemnation is general. Conviction
for example would say, you spoke harshly to your wife. Condemnation would say, you are a worthless
husband. The Holy Spirit Will highlight a specific behavior that needs to be changed but the devil
just throws us under the bus. The conviction of the Holy Spirit deals with specific behavior,
action or something you said, something you did. It does not bundle the whole life that
you have into one thing and now you have to deal with the whole thing and so what condemnation
does is pretty much condemn takes one mistake that you did and then magnifies that and says,
now you are a bad person. Now you are a terrible father, a terrible husband and you're worthless.
You're no good. It's very general. You are bad. I mean on a bad day, all of us can feel like that
and that's condemnation. The Holy Spirit does not deal with us in big general terms, He deals
with us specifically with a specific behavior or a specific speech or what we did or what we
said or our attitude and that's so refreshing and honestly, helpful because I can't be working on
everything in my life but if the Holy Spirit highlights one particular thing that I did,
one particular thing I said or one particular attitude that I had, it's easier to bring that,
repent for that and begin to focus my life to not do that again versus this general blanket
statement, Hey you're just a bad Christian. You're just a lukewarm Christian. That's a
condemnation but conviction would say you know what, your prayer life or your devotional life
is weak. That's different. Now I can strengthen my devotional life. You know condemnation would say,
you are full of lust. Conviction will say, you know you are spending too much time scrolling on
Tik Tok where you are tempted and you keep falling into the same sin. So now the focus is walking
away from this particular thing instead of trying to walk around and wallowing yourself in guilt
and condemnation and I'm worthless. I'm no good. That's the first difference. The second one is
conviction attacks an issue. Condemnation attacks your identity. The devil is the accuser of the
brethren according to Revelation 12:10. He seeks to accuse us before God. He also accuses us before
ourselves to ourselves. We have a conscience that convicts us or condemns us a lot of times,
it's like a judge in a courtroom. It doesn't make the rules, it just pretty much executes
the verdict. You did wrong. You should have not done this. Your own heart the Bible says
can judge you and condemn you. The devil comes on the other side actually and adds to it and
one of his techniques is a direct assault on your identity as a Christian, your identity as
a believer. Now as a Christian, your identity is not connected to your issue. The Bible calls us
righteous. The scripture calls us new creation. The scripture calls us we are in Christ meaning,
our identity is not connected to our last mistake. It's not connected to sin that we've committed.
It's connected to Jesus's death on the cross. So what condemnation does is comes in and says,
The cross doesn't matter. The blood doesn't matter. Jesus's death does not matter. His
burial does not matter. His resurrection does not matter. His ascension does not matter. His
priestly role at the right hand of God does not matter. His sanctifying blood does not matter.
There's only one thing that matters, you looked at this thing yesterday. You did this thing the
day before. You said this word today. So what the devil does is he uses your mistake to send
the message that your mistake is your identity. Your issue is your identity. What you fell into
is who you are. Now, conviction of the the Holy Spirit doesn't deal necessarily with our identity,
it deals with an issue that needs to be resolved. In fact, the Holy Spirit doesn't only convict us
of the sin but also of the righteousness meaning, the Holy Spirit many times will come and also
convict you of who you are in Jesus, of your forgiveness in Jesus and your identity in Jesus
in spite of where you've fallen and where you have tripped up. This doesn't give us a license to sin,
this gives us empowerment to get out of sin. The Bible says, A righteous man falls seven
times. I find it interesting it still says, righteous man. It doesn't say a fallen man;
a righteous man. Why? Because his identity is not connected to him not falling, his identity
is connected to him being righteous in right standing with God and because he's righteous,
it doesn't mean he doesn't fall. It just means he doesn't stay when he falls and he's not defined by
his fall. He can get hurt by his fall. He can get scratched up by his fall. He can actually lose a
spiritual momentum by his fall but he doesn't stay when he falls. Why? Because his identity,
he's a new creation. You know sheep, they cry when they fall into mud. Pigs, they entertain
themselves. You are not a pig, you are a sheep. So when you fall, you don't feel good about it. When
you commit sin, you don't feel good about it and there's a conviction of the Holy Spirit that says,
Get up. Get out. The condemnation says, that's who you are. You belong there. What's the point of
trying. You keep on falling. You know people don't drown by falling into water, they drown by staying
there. Your identity is in Jesus. Therefore shake off that condemnation, receive the conviction
not only of what you did wrong but also of who Jesus is and who you are in Him, righteousness
conviction of that and live a life of repentance and walk away from that behavior. Now, the third
thing about conviction and condemnation is that conviction is from the Holy Spirit. Condemnation
is from the devil. Now I already made a reference to that but I just want to specify that again.
Conviction doesn't just come from you nor does condemnation come from your heart. It's true,
we have a heart. We have a conscience that condemns us but the condemnation I'm referring to
is so dark. It's so depressing. It brings us down so bad that it goes beyond our own heart. There's
a spiritual force that wants to beat us down with guilt and shame and it does that through the venue
of guilt and condemnation and of course, guilt and condemnation wouldn't work if there would be
no sin but the Holy Spirit, He uses conviction to modify, renew and change our behavior into
the likeness of Jesus Christ. Now, number four. Conviction gives you hope. Condemnation makes
you hopeless. When the Holy Spirit convicts, lights come on. Hope is released. Change is
imminent. Godly sorrow and repentance follow but with the condemnation, everything is the
opposite. You feel like a loser, like a failure. You can't change. What's the point of trying.
That's condemnation. Hopelessness. That's why a lot of times when people say, man, I feel so bad,
I've done this thing. I feel so terrible. That's condemnation. That's not Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit
always gives us light at the end of the tunnel and that light my friend is not the train, it's
hope. It's change. It's transformation. Nobody has fallen so deep God's grace cannot pick us up.
Nobody has lost so much to sin God's power cannot redeem us. The Bible says, The Lord is such a good
Shepherd that when the lion tears a sheep, there's only two pieces of leg, bone of a leg and a little
bit of an ear that's left, He still goes and rescues that sheep. That means God is better at
saving you than you are at sinning. His blood is more powerful than all the sin all the world has
ever committed. There's hope in the Holy Spirit. Hope in God but there is no hope outside of Holy
Spirit. Hopelessness, despair and you trying to say, Oh I'm just going to try harder. Yeah
I'm just going to improve. That's like cleaning a dirty window with a dirty rag. Your righteousness,
your good efforts are not good enough to get you all cleaned up. The fifth difference between the
conviction and the condemnation. Conviction leads us to repentance. Condemnation leads us
to remorse. Now, condemnation seems attractive to people who don't know the Holy Spirit because
it leads you to feeling bad about yourself and some of us, we like feeling bad about ourselves
especially after we mess up. You know Judas betrayed Jesus, sold Jesus and then he felt bad.
That's not conviction. He actually returned the money. That's not conviction and then he hanged
himself. That's condemnation. It kind of makes you feel bad, then you do something about feeling bad,
then you actually feel worse because none of feeling bad cleanses your sin. You got a problem
with God. You got a problem with your heart. You got a problem with the devil. You got a problem,
big problem and feeling bad about yourself is not going to solve the problem. There's only one thing
that can solve the problem is that somebody needs to deal with the mess and that somebody is Jesus.
So what the conviction of the Holy Spirit does is the Holy Spirit comes and says, Hey let me lead
you to repentance. Let me give you godly sorrow. Yes, there is a conviction that exists. You sinned
against God, you sinned against yourself. Man, you messed up but this leads you to the Father not to
hang yourself, not to hurt yourself because you go to the Father you know that solution is in the
blood. The price is already paid. You don't need to kill yourself for sin. Jesus already died for
your sin. No amount of hurting yourself can ever make you earn God's love, God's forgiveness and
so conviction of the Holy Spirit points to the cross, exalts Jesus. It doesn't exalt our sin.
It exalts His blood. It exalts His sacrifice and it just leads you to repentance. Repentance is
turning around. Repentance is I won't do it again. Repentance is man, this hurt God's heart. Man,
this hurt me. This hurt the Holy Spirit and this gave an open access to the devil. I do not
want to do that again. That's conviction. Godly sorrow leads to repentance but the worldly sorrow
produces death and that's exactly what happened to Judas. Remorse only produces more guilt,
more shame and more regret. Repentance makes you better. Remorse makes you worse and so repentance
comes from conviction of the Holy Spirit, remorse comes from condemnation. You just feel bad,
feeling bad and some people like feeling bad, it doesn't change them. So I hope in this video, you
learned these five differences between conviction and condemnation. Recognize the condemnation.
Reject it. Run to the Holy Spirit. Run to Jesus. Run to conviction. Welcome conviction of the Holy
Spirit, because that conviction will lead you to change, repentance and lead you to
a person that could be more like God. In fact I just released a book called, "Host the Holy
Ghost" and I go in detail about conviction and condemnation as well as other things that you can
allow the Holy Spirit to work in your life. The book is available in English, Spanish,
Russian, other languages as well are being translated right now in paperback, hard cover,
audio version and there's a Kindle version and so many other things. Go to hosttheholyghost.com and
then you can download a free copy actually. So if you can't afford it, you can just download a free
copy. It's my gift to you. I want you to learn and dwell in the Holy Spirit, become His friend and
you can do that by learning His works, His ways and His personality and this book will help you
to do that. God bless you. Thank you. Hit like to this video. Share this with other people and