Truth

John 16:7-13 says, “But here’s the truth: It’s to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away the Divine Encourager [Holy Spirit] will not be released to you. But after I depart, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will expose sin and prove that the world is wrong about God’s righteousness and his judgments. ‘Sin,’ because they refuse to believe in who I am. God’s ‘righteousness,’ because I’m going back to join the Father and you’ll see me no longer. And ‘judgment’ because the ruler of this dark world has already received his sentence. 

There is so much more I would like to say to you, but it’s more than you can grasp at this moment. But when the truth-giving Spirit comes, he will unveil the reality of every truth within you. He won’t speak on his own, but only what he hears from the Father, and he will reveal prophetically to you what is to come.”

Last week we talked about how God is omnipresent and how we are to live conscious of this. This week we will be looking at how Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and how He brings truth and conviction into our hearts.

If we are to be aware of Holy Spirit being present with us in every situation, how do we tune in to His channel so we can hear when He is saying, “Don’t go there.” Or, “You should not have said that.” First step to hearing God is to get saved. I’ll also be clear and say that Holy Spirit conviction is not our guilty conscience or shame. Our conscience is shaped by our experiences. There are things that I could do when I was not walking with God that my conscience thought were ok. However, when I started walking with Jesus, Holy Spirit would say, “No, we don’t do that.” My mind would be like, “We don’t?” Haha. It was news to me.

What’s “normal” for us, or what’s “right” to us is not always what is right to God, see Isaiah 55:8-9. Holy Spirit brings truth. Conviction is not about us feeling like we are the scum of the earth. If you feel that way, then it is the devil speaking to you not Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit conviction brings revelation. A light bulb goes off like, “Oh. You’re right, that would be hurtful if someone did that to me. I really should stop doing that to others and apologise to this person.”

Holy Spirit conviction shows us that though we may be okay doing it (our conscience thinks its all good) it may not be the right thing to do. Holy Spirit exposes sin. You can sin and not know that you are sinning because sin is normal to us. But when the word of God comes to you and you hear the truth, then you have a responsibility to turn away from that behaviour or thing and follow Holy Spirit. You have a responsibility to repent. “God, I am sorry. I didn’t realise that was the wrong thing to do, please forgive me.”  Then you turn away from that behaviour or thing and go the other way.

Holy Spirit also exposes the truth about God’s righteousness and judgment. From the day we accept Jesus into our hearts, we are righteous before God, 2 Corinthians 5:21. So we don’t need to hide in shame or guilt over our mistakes past and present. We go to God, and we trust that He is faithful to forgive and help us deal with our stuff, 1 John 1:9. We also need to know that we were not made for judgment, judgement was always preserved for the devil until sin entered in. If you are feeling condemned like there is no hope, that is not Holy Spirit. There is always hope in God. You can come to God no matter what you have done!

Holy Spirit may be omnipresent, but I can guarantee you that Holy Spirit is not telling me every 5 seconds all the things that are wrong with me. That is not how God works. If you are hearing about all your mistakes all the time, that is not Holy Spirit. Shut that down. That is the voice of the enemy.

God is good and He helps us learn and grow layer by layer, brick by brick. He does not expect us to be perfect and He does not expect us to get it together overnight. We are all a work in progress till the day Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6 says, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.