The Difference Between Guilt and Conviction

What is the difference between guilt and conviction? The simple definition we addressed is guilt leads to death and conviction leads to life. The longer discussion centered around the source of the two. Guilt is the voice of the enemy, and conviction is the voice of the Holy Spirit. The class notes for Guilt vs. Conviction are posted.

How do we differentiate between the voice of the enemy and the voice of God? The more we know the character of God; the more we will know His voice. God loves us. God is for us. God believes in us. God will lead us to hope and life. (If you doubt any of this read Romans 8 multiple times.)

How do you address the voices? God's voice - embrace freely; Enemy's voice - reject boldly. Here is a scenerio that happens in every home. Your spouse says something and you take it the wrong way. You get mad. The voice of the enemy starts feeding you lies - "Your spouse is always getting on you about this. It's like he/she thinks you do nothing. He/she has no respect for you and what you do."

The first time you hear this you can come out pretty quickly knowing that they are lies. BUT, if you do not expose them as lies, you are vulnerable to when your spouse makes a similar statement later that makes the lies feel true again. Over time the lies sound more true than the truth. Therefore when we experience the lies, we need to go with love to our spouse and say when you said this, these were the lies I heard... This may be a tough conversation, but the unexposed lies will cause separation and God calls us to intimacy.

Applying this to our kids. If we as adults have trouble exposing the lies even when we know them to be lies, imagine how hard it is for our children who need to be lead through this process. The enemy will try to steal truth from our kids just as he tries to steal it from us. We must open the doors of conversation with them so we can expose the lies and replace them with the truth about our love for them.