The Truth Convicts

When we come to church, we come for several reasons. In addition to worshipping God and fellowshipping with other believers, we come to hear God’s word. We don’t gather to hear self-help, pop psychology, stand-up comedy, or moralistic therapy talks. We come to hear what God has to say. We come to hear HIM in his word. To encounter his truth and be shaped by it. This is the greatest need of our souls. When this healthy encounter with the life-changing word of God truly takes place there are several obvious things it produces in us such as joy, comfort, encouragement, insight, etc.

While all of these will surely take place at one time or another, there is another effect of encountering God’s word which does not always seem as popular. Conviction. In Acts 2:37-38, after Peter preached the first Christian sermon, the text says

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ”

In other words, the preached word of God produced an intense inner conviction and the only appropriate response was to completely turn from sin and turn to Christ in faith. If we are going to grow into mature believers, conformed to the image of Christ, we can expect that his word will continually confront various discrepancies in our lives between how we are living and how he is calling us to live. This is obvious because we all are a work-in-progress with a long way to go in our spiritual development.

We shouldn’t think it strange then, when we experience conviction in church. In fact, I would suggest that if we never experience conviction in church, we might not be hearing the truth. I also suggest that one sign of the faithful preaching of God’s word is the presence of genuine biblical conviction. If you experience genuine conviction while in church (I’m not talking about being guilt tripped) you can have confidence that you are hearing truth.

Genuine biblical conviction is something that we should all long for and desire because sin and deception is destructive to us. Becoming aware of destructive sinfulness in our lives is something we should be grateful for. If we never experience conviction, it could be that we’re not hearing the truth at all because sometimes the truth hurts. But the painful truth is often the way to the deepest healing.

So, experiencing genuine conviction from time to time in church is good, healthy, and necessary. We should be careful to welcome conviction rather than run from it as some will do in the last days. Check out what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

Its a scary day when we start rejecting the convicting, reforming, healing truth of God’s word. If you experience genuine conviction in church, thank God for it. If not, you may not really be hearing the truth. Yes God’s word brings joy, encouragement, peace, etc. But it also brings conviction. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be lulled into justifying compromise and complacency by finding teachers who make me feel good about my sin. I want to be confronted with the truth no matter how painful because God’s truth is what I need and I have a lot of growing to do.