Today's Devotional

August 21, 2003

Subject:  Convict or Conviction

Romans 7:15 - "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I."

Why is that so many believers find themselves in the situation that Paul listed above?  It's the situation where we know the principles of God and we know His standards for us and in light of those things, we go against them, often without making any excuse except to say that "we're doing what we don't want to do."  I looked at a couple of words that I thought might shed a little light on the matter and those are the two words above; convict and conviction.  It was interesting to see the differences and the similarities in these two words.

As we know a convict, in noun form, is one who has been found guilty and imprisoned.  Conviction, however, is the state of being convinced.  So what is it that we are convinced about?  For believers, we are convicted (convinced) that what we are doing is wrong, that is, that we are guilty, therefore we call it conviction.  It's conviction that says that we need to stop doing what we are doing.  It is conviction that tells us that our acts stand before the Judge on the throne and are in need of His mercy.  It's also conviction or being convinced of the requirements of God's moral law that we should not enter into certain conduct in the first place.

Without conviction, we become convicts to, if nothing else, our actions.  Those wrongful and sinful acts that we allowed in our lives, begin to imprison us.  Finally we see no way of escape and so we often throw out the conviction and continue in sin.

In the end, before becoming a convict, we should maintain our conviction that God is righteous and holy and desires that we live as such.  If you find yourself acknowledging today that something you are doing or participating in is wrong, stop now and throw yourself on the mercy of The Court before becoming a convict of that conduct.  

Carlen