James 4:17

I heard this verse again this weekend during the Pastor's sermon.  This verse has haunted ~ wait, that isn't the right word ~ convicted me repeatedly over the last year and a half.  It started with the study of James. 

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.  ~James 4:17

Once you know the good you are to do and don't do it, it is sin.

James is talking about many things here.  Following His will, tithing, making disciples, praying.  There is so much more.

Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed.  Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. ~Isaiah 1:17

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. ~Micah 6:8

Conviction isn't really conviction if all I do is FEEL convicted.  True conviction means you feel, you KNOW, that you aren't doing something you should or that you are doing something that you shouldn't, then making that change.  You change, you transform, your actions. 

I have been riding out the feelings of conviction for far too long, and now I need to really focus on transformation.  The kind that gets me off my backside and puts me out in the world.  The kind that no longer reads about or researches or gathers tools for fighting trafficking but puts those words and pieces of information and tools to work.  The kind that pushes me outside my comfort zone to spread awareness of this growing epidemic.  The kind that puts me in places where God is ready for people to hear and be uncomfortable in their "doing nothing"-ness.  The kind that sees first hand what true, deep darkness and despair looks like when I look into the eyes of someone who has been trafficked.  The kind that has me fully depending on God.  The kind that puts me where God leads me in order to do what I was put on this planet to do - spread the gospel. 

If we were put here to do anything other than spread the gospel and make more disciples, God would take each and every one of us as soon as we were saved by grace and mercy.  He doesn't.  He prepares us for taking the gospel into the world.  He prepares us to fight injustice and help the poor and needy.  He prepares us to defend the widow and the orphan.  He prepares us where He convicts us. 

So here I go.  Take a step out on faith.  Taking steps to take my conviction to transformation.

Once you know...