Do we think of disbelief as sin? When
sin is mentioned, things come to mind like adultery, murder, lying,
theft, disobedience. And all of this is sin, but all of this stems
from disbelief. Christians sin as well, which gives depth to
disbelief. It's not just, I don't think God exists.
It's, I don't believe He is who He claims to be.
We don't take Him at His holy word, the word that spoke everything
into creation. He says He loves us, but we don't believe Him, so we
look for love elsewhere. He says He'll provide, but we steal and
destroy in the name of self-preservation and satisfaction. We sin, we
rebel against God because we have trust issues.
And
Jesus says here that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of this.
He'll bring it to our attention, and it will knead our hearts so that
we can't ignore it. We will face our sin, our disbelief, and have to
deal with it one way or another. We may either embrace the
conviction, repent and turn from our wicked ways, trusting wholly in
the Lord and living in communion with Him as we were always meant to
be; or we may embrace sin and live a miserable life, followed by a
miserable eternity. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit does not only
present us with the shade of our sin, but the challenge of
righteousness as well.