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Acts 24
“As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, ‘That’s enough for now!’” (Acts 24:25a). Felix was feeling the heat of conviction! And he didn’t want to hear it. There are two ways that we can respond to conviction, which is that nagging consciousness of our own guilt. We can respond with humility, acknowledging and repenting of that guilt. Or we can respond with pride and refuse to accept that we need to change our ways. Felix clearly chose the latter.
It appears that he chose to let his pride win for the longer term as well. Because he was hoping for a bribe from Paul, he continued to talk with him. But the fact that he left Paul in prison when he left his position two years later tells me that he didn’t listen. Instead, he let his pride callous his heart to the truth so that he no longer felt that conviction when he heard it. I hope for Felix’s sake that God’s truth ultimately penetrated that calloused heart. And I pray that I learn from Felix and choose to face the Spirit’s promptings and convictions with humility.
Lev. 5-6
“If anyone becomes aware that they are guilty” (Lev. 5:1a). There’s that conviction thing again. I find it interesting that the people were considered guilty even if their actions were not intentional and did not constitute any ‘wrongdoing’. Anything that made them unfit to be in the presence of God made them guilty. So when they became aware that they were unfit to be in God’s presence, they had to “confess in what way they [had] sinned” (Lev. 5:5b) and then make an offering to atone for that sin to make them acceptable to God again.
This is a good description of what happened to Felix when Paul spoke to him and what happens to each of us when we first become aware that God is holy and we are not. We become aware that we are unfit to be in God’s presence. Thankfully, Jesus is our atoning sacrifice for all eternity, so we don’t have to bring lambs and goats and birds. But we do still need to confess our unholiness. We need to acknowledge our need for the atoning sacrifice of Jesus and to accept it as our own. We can only do this if we, unlike Felix, are willing to set aside our pride.