@anon75384934
Would you kindly share your previous posts regarding your experiences? I am not here for distractions or wordplay. I have already addressed the topic at hand, though perhaps not in the manner you were hoping for.
Iron with iron is sharpened, so a man sharpens the face of his friend-or,
Barzel bᵉvarzel yaḥad, ve’ish yaḥad pᵉnei re‘eihu
Pro 27:17 Barzel (iron) sharpeneth barzel (iron); so one ish sharpeneth another.
PS. I’m the potato.
Thanks.
J.
Yes you are. God Bless.
Neither do I. God Bless.
Anyone who can actually respond with an answer to the subject of this post, please, by all means.
Personally I think @KPuff is qualified to answer you.
J.
I will try to give you what you asked for, but I don’t sense you will like it very much. I apologize in advance.
You seem to be saying (quote above) when you “feel guilty” it is your conscience goading you, but when you honestly reflect on your own motives it is the Holy Spirit being active in your self-evaluation. To you, your conscience “drives you by fear or guilt”, but the Holy Spirit “treats you as a thinking and reasonable adult”.
I read in this thread several people consider both the conscience and The Holy Spirit both to be “influences” to do the right thing. They are both spoken of in terms that equate them to such a degree that the question is then asked, “What’s the difference between the two”; personal, opinionated, and unscriptural definitions of the two “influences” blur their distinctions and highlight their commonality. I am trying to find a way through that insidious blurring fog to help you more clearly discriminate between two very dissimilar things, to stimulate your spiritual discernment, and to speak to you in a language you may be able to hear (I hope).
I carefully read your personal story about your bout with “racism” at work and how you recovered. You “realized” that the situation exposed something latent in your personality, and you felt that exposure was the work of The Holy Spirit making you feel good about your discovery, and not your conscience making you feel guilty about your sin. Simply put, it sounds like you are saying when confronted with ungodliness in your life, if you end up feeling bad about it, then it is the conviction of your conscience, but if you end up feeling good about it, it is the loving gentle correction of the Holy Spirit. You are saying, (I think) you can tell the difference between these two influences, that seem to have a similar job, by how they make you feel about yourself in the end; specifically, that the Holy Spirit influences you toward love. If I am oversimplifying your position, I’m sorry. I am just trying to get to the heart of what you are saying.
While I fully understand how you might come to this understanding; how you have had these real experiences, how you evaluated them in your own mind, and how you subsequently came to the conclusions you have related to us in your posts. And, while your conclusions seem rational, and understandable, they do not really have any scriptural undergirding. Even a cursory study of the work of The Holy Spirit from Holy Scripture will guide you to a very different understanding of the Holy Spirit of God; it will not guide you into thinking The Holy Spirit God is anything like your conscience. It is in this vein that I suggested comparing a potato to a tornado (cyclone) is more likely to show commonality than comparing your human conscience to The Holy Spirit God, Creator and Sustainer of everything in existence. A potato and tornado both end in the letter “O”, but other than that they really bear very little likeness to one another. By comparing them you inadvertently elevate the potato to an unassailable destructive force of nature, or you diminish the tornado to be just a swirl of milk in your teacup. Here lies my objection.
I will leave it to you to dive into a thorough topical study of The Holy Spirit in Scripture, to list all the things (actions) attributed to God, and His interactions with His material world. Allow me to warn you, even a halting approach toward the Throne of Grace will crush you under such extreme weight of Glory, and envelop you in such fearful undoing awe that any comparison to your own simple human conscience will melt like a misty cloud under your own crushing experience of disintegration. An encounter with The Holy Spirit will not leave you feeling pretty good about yourself, but even a small exposure to Holiness will take you so close to feeling like a minute pile of dust that unless The Lord Himself lifts you up, you would become unmade. The “Mysterium tremendum” is no trifle.
Perspective.
KP
You did not disappoint, @KPuff—this overflowed with ἐξουσία (exousia, authority) and δύναμις (dunamis, power).
May the Holy Spirit συμμαρτυρεῖ (symmarturei, Romans 8:16—“bears witness with”) our spirit that we are υἱοὶ Θεοῦ (huioi Theou, sons of God).
I am μανθάνων (manthanōn, learning) much from you. Keep pressing in.
J.