The only childhood memories I have connected to correction came with punishment. If I was sassy, the punishment was a bar of soap in my mouth. When I was disobedient to some rule that was laid down, I was put over the knee and the wooden spoon was on my buttocks. If I lied or did some other activity that was unacceptable I was grounded for days.
Correction was tied to punishment for me as a child, but it did not stop in childhood. If I am honest, correction from people has more often than not, had a punishment tied to it. Whether the punishment fit the crime or not is a whole other story.
When correction is tied to punishment, we no longer want to be corrected for what we do wrong. We fear the punishment, that is why we get that knot in our stomach or put up those thick walls of self-protection. If we were honest, correction has been tied to punishment, so now conviction is not something we feel much anymore, for we don’t want to be punished, not by people but by God.
When was the last time you genuinely felt convicted for something you did, by God? When I first got saved, I was so sensitive to conviction, because I was being transformed. I remember altar calls in our church weekly, because people were being convicted by the Holy Spirit. People would run to the altar, kneel, lay face down under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Just this week, the Lord revealed to me, correction from people leads to punishment. If you are convicted of a crime there is a punishment for the crime. However, conviction by the Holy Spirit leads to liberation. I wonder if we are not free because we have stopped being sensitive to conviction by God?
John 16:8-11 says this of the Holy Spirit, “When He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
It is time for us to be convicted again, for the sake of liberation not punishment. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org
