I'm answering a question that came to me from the last Shoveletter. Somehow, I think it is something that many of you may have been wondering, so I am including it here.

Delivered from "sin-consciousness"? I'm a bit uncertain of your point. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin. The sinner's problem is not that he is too sensitive to his sin - just the opposite! His conscience is calloused to his sin (Ephesians 4:18-19) From John S. 4/23/99

When we were in the darkness everything we did was in the darkness ... whether we thought so or not. When we were in sin everything we did was in sin. Our consciousness was defined by our prison. This is the meaning of sin-consciousness. We judged from within this framework. And we created our own standards by which we could compare one with another ... or we used the standards of the Bible! The end result would be the same. We would use any system to judge how we stacked up against our neighbors. We even judged sins. Of course, we didn't know what sin was. How could we? Being sin-conscious, we made false distinctions in order to justify our own existence in this prison.

Nothing could have broken us out of that sin-conscious mentality except the Spirit. For He miraculously revealed to us the true nature of sin and that our whole lives had been formed by it. Remember, it is the WORLD that is convicted of its sin by the Spirit and not the believer. Also, consider that since it is the Spirit doing this work in place of Jesus (for that is why He was sent) the convicting of sin is being done through those the Spirit lives in.

...of sin, because they don't believe in Me John 16:9

[Now, in case you think this could mean that now you are supposed to convict people of their sins you didn't read it right. Because in the same way that Jesus' very presence convicted the world of their sin THAT IS HOW THE SPIRIT IS WORKING THROUGH YOU. How else did you think He was working in this world? My question to you here is: are you going to follow-up the miraculous work of God through Christ by ministering LAW and DEATH to people? Or will you listen with the ears of the Spirit and minister LIFE to those who are being convicted of sin, righteousness and judgment?]

Have a shovelacious day! :) :)
the shovel (aka. Jim)