Devotional - 97-02-18 - Conviction

Psalm 57: 7 "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast."

Every day we are given examples of people without convictions. This might be most evident today in politics when people say that certain kinds of fund raising should not be done and the next day do the very thing they were speaking against the day before. We have seen it in religion over the years as well. Preachers who preach against sin while they are wading in it as they speak. Talk about spineless...they have no convictions. Their words are hollow, meaningless, and as empty as a black hole. I am willing to bet that many of you are people of conviction. That you can say with David, "My heart is steadfast". The great theologian Jonathan Edwards went as far as to say that, "All is carried on by conviction". So here are some practical thoughts on conviction.

• If you have convictions on something and lose your convictions, it is harder to gain them back.

• This is more true in spiritual matters. If you grow senseless as to eternal matters, when you were formerly aware of them, it will be all the more difficult to awaken holy convictions.

• If you lose your convictions on spiritual things, it is no benefit to you that you ever had them. If you have strong desires for salvation and walking with Christ now; and in the future lose those desires and convictions, they have aided you none. When you have fought against sin, and made progress toward the kingdom of heaven, if you lose your convictions, you will lose all that you had gained. All will be lost.

• We must have the right convictions. To this end we must study God's Word. It is a disadvantage to us to develop convictions that are against the will and commands of God. In order to develop holy convictions we must carefully study God's Word and carefully listen to the exposition and preaching of God's Word.

"Convictions are the root on which the tree of vital Christianity grows." Benjamin B. Warfield

Soli Deo Gloria,
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