Some more thoughts are below the video. Give it a watch and read some more about conviction, condemnation, and accusation.
Maybe you are like me and battle the continual onslaught of thoughts, ideas or voices of something outside of myself. The truth is some of that is my my own doing because of the constant flow of information I allow in. Some of it is my culture not valuing silence.
Much of it, however, is just the way it is on this side of the final and full establishment of the kingdom of God and the final destruction of the curse of sin.
The question for me is not, why are these thoughts, ideas and voices coming at me? The question for me is, what am I going to do with them?
It’s truly hard to put all the things that come at me in a day into nice, neat, and clean categories. So, pardon the incomplete categories of the title. There may be dozens of sub-categories for these big three, and maybe your major categories are different, but these are mine:
Conviction – convinced about the rightness of something; shown to be wrong; convinced of error.
Condemnation – sentenced for wrong; separated/distinguished into the status of wrong; judged.
Accusation – charged with fault.
Note that each of these are “biblical” words, and that’s likely because I happen to think in “bible words”, and that’s not a bad thing.
Here is where this gets hard. It’s hard for me to distinguish between these without some order, discipline and deep thought, and I believe that this is due to the fact that there is a war going on inside and outside. The “world”, the “flesh”, and the “devil” conspire to do me harm. The Holy Spirit conspires with the Father and the Son to do me ONLY good. That is the locus of my war.
Jesus explicitly said that conviction is one of the Spirit’s works.
Condemnation is what happens to those outside of Jesus. See John 3:18.
Accusation is what Satan seems to do so well. See Revelation 12:10; Zechariah 3:1.
My dark side (some may call that their “flesh”), hears conviction and confuses it with condemnation. My dark side hears godly grief (there is such a thing see 2 Corinthians 7:10), and interprets accusation.
How do I work this out? I have to have:
The ridiculous routine of bible reading and prayer…for some extended time.
When I slack on this one, condemnation and accusation run away with me in tow like C3PO on Chewbacca’s back in Star Wars. This is me being carried off by condemnation and accusation when I don’t have the ridiculous routine of bible and prayer.
Taking my thoughts down in my journal, and asking the Holy Spirit to take them and me to Jesus.
If I don’t capture those thoughts and look at them under the microscope of God’s divine help, I’ll become a victim of them.
Fight with help!
I have to fight ⅔ of the thoughts that enter my head, and often that comes in Jennifer’s simply calling the kettle black for me. I will let ⅔ of that mess affect far too much in my home and work, and I go into a predictable cycle, and then to the need to deal with what I’m believing in the moment.
So, don’t think yourself on an island with your thoughts. Bring them under the rule of Jesus with some of these little tools I’m sharing with you today, and fight the good fight well.
Theology in the Dirt 