No Fear of Conviction
I bought and read the book “Radical” by David Platt. It was awesome. You can read the book review on my other blog on March 12th (that’s when the book review article is scheduled) at www.MenRising.com
I’m not going to review the book here, but after reading it I felt like a light had been turned on in my head, and I fell under great conviction. In short, get it, read it, and see if you are not equally challenged by it. Here I am, at least a week removed from reading it, and I am beginning to make decisions now based on the convictions of that book.
Then it hit me, why do people seem to fear making a stand and fear the possibility that others might fall under conviction of the Holy Spirit about something they aren’t doing that they should, or something they are doing that they shouldn’t? Why does anyone fear saying something that might put the power of conviction on someone else’s life? Of course, speak the truth in love, but at some point the band-aid Christianity being lived has to be ripped off.
People who live a false Christianity want to feel comfortable with the lace covered veil they have pulled tightly down over their own eyes, and would rather not see the world as it really is, or their own life before God as God sees it. Such a vision would be abhorrent, and people who try to lift the veil are to be avoided. So, the messages that really would convict people get padded and softened until the real truth is hidden behind something more comfortable, and the hope is that somehow God will use THAT message to speak to people’s hearts. (forehead smack)
As a Christian who desires to live a Christian life, who really wants the power of God in me and working outward into the lives of others around me, so that others would be saved and my life would glorify God, and if I REALLY DO WANT THAT and not some watered down version of that, then I am going to be open to the harsher truths of the Bible that show me for the broken person I am, that person that God wants to use anyway, and God will use if I will give everything I am to the One Person worth losing everything for. Because I really do want that life, I have no fear of conviction.
Do you?
Interestingly, I’ve just started reading this book myself. He hits the whole penal subsitutionary theme a little hard for my taste, but I agree that what we’ve done to the way Jesus taught dishonors his sacrifice horrendously. What must the mindless self-indulgence of American (actually, western) Christianity look like to a man whose very essence was self-sacrifice?
What he is hitting hard is this truth: that the real Christian life is not selfish. Later, he challenges the reader to really examine his own salvation, for if we are truly changed with a new mind, a new heart, and a new Spirit within us, then there will be an outward result.
I felt he was walking awfully close to the line of a “works salvation” but he makes it clear that this is not his intent and that salvation is indeed a free gift without expectation of reciprocation. However, such a real transformation would not leave the new Christian with the same desires.
His argument, that we have softened and blunted the transformational example that Christ was because of our own reluctance for sacrifice gives evidence to two possibilities: 1. that we are not saved OR 2. that we who are saved have allowed the inner Spirit to be silenced because of the pattern of the church today – to live a comfortable life instead of living a Gospel centered, God glorifying life.
When I read these words, something in me stirs, and I think that is the point. I believe the saved individual will be awakened and convicted, and will accept these truths from the Bible, whereas someone who is merely playing Christian would be prone to draw back, fearing a conviction that could change their life or make them uncomfortable.
I’m not saying I’m right, but what I do know is that when raw truth from the Bible is presented, I do not fear conviction, I rather welcome it.