John 16:8-11 – When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; about sin, because they don’t believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more; about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.

Here we learn of three things that the Holy Spirit is actively doing on earth today. He is “convicting” the world, today I want to discuss one of them.

As a Christian, I often hear people say things like, “you shouldn’t push your religion on other people.” I have even heard this said of people who hardly spoke a word at all. This is evidence to me that the Holy Spirit is working in that person to “convict” the world.

When it says that He is causing conviction “about sin, because they don’t believe in me” He says something that I think very few have taken to heart. There is one sin in our world that is above all others because if you sin in this way, you won’t have a chance at going to heaven. This sin is the sin of unbelief in Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that convicts us that this is the truth. It would probably seem ridiculous to us if He didn’t make it clear to us. Notice that He didn’t say because of murder, or theft or not taking care of the earth (all of which are sins by the way). The thing is that Jesus already paid the price for all of these sins; but if we don’t believe we can’t get the benefit of it because we remain guilty of this one last thing. That’s all there is left to do.

It isn’t that we as Christians force our beliefs on others. I think that the real reason is that it has been made very convincing by God so that as many people as possible will believe and be saved from eternal punishment. So, we shouldn’t shy away when people say this. Instead, let’s continue to share with each other in the hopes that those who will listen will be saved.