"This is a faithful saying (you can depend upon it) and worthy of all acceptance (your conviction is on firm ground), that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
In the next verse Paul goes on - "... Jesus Christ's patience over me, is a pattern to those which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting."
Paul can speak of this from personal experience as he was given the task by the Pharisees to hold Stephen's clothes while they stoned this Apostle to death, and this led Paul (his name was Saul at this time) down the path of becoming a frightful persecutor of the followers of Christ overseeing many other martyrdoms.
In this role he heard there were Christians in Damascus to go after, and secured an official letter from the Jewish authorities to travel there and dispatch them similarly. He was a nasty piece of work to say the least in this pursuit. He was greatly feared. He was the first centuries' Himmilar, head of Gestapo. (Acts 9).
It was this same Paul (Saul) that Jesus met on that road to Damascus. His life was never the same. The turn around was phenomenal (his name was changed to Paul) and many would not believe it, the story was so unbelievable, incomprehensible.
His conviction that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (like himself) was such that the commentator Luke reported that Christians were turning the world upside down.
With conviction must come "motivation"
With conviction must come "motivation", an idea that I've been thinking about for a few months. More specifically, that part of motivation which relates to taking action.
On reflection, I think that there are two parts within the modern concept of motivation - there is an action-taking part, and then there is the part which relates to merely being aware of the rewards that may result from taking action. These two parts have been lumped together in the modern, fashionable use of the word, 'motivation'.
Stay with me here - I find the proposition that human willpower is the single most powerful force in the known universe is inspiring, but it somehow is not inspiring enough and falls short of spurring me on to even attempt some of my goals.
I started reading on "motivation" and "will power". One of the words that stood out in this search was "conviction". As 'motivation' is associated with conviction, it seems reasonable that confidence too must be important enabler towards boosting willpower. This raised my next question.
Is there a connection between Conviction and Will-Power?
I'm struggling with the idea that there is a direct connection between "conviction" (in the Christian sense it associated with the Holy Spirit within the believer) and the idea of "will-power" (our own strength and determination, which the Scriptures describes as a 'Work' where one cannot earn Salvation).
In Christian thinking "Holy Spirit led Faith" and "human Works" are diametrically opposed.
Stay with me? With my assumption that with conviction must come "motivation", the word "conviction" it appears has associations with my personal motivation, although from my training, in the physical world in terms of spectrum's, such as low to high, cold to hot, slow to fast, I'm finding that the connection may not be immediate.
In Christian theology this process is only sometimes "immediate". It is normally described the other way round, that the Holy Spirit brings 'conviction' and the 'motivation' is the outworking of that 'conviction'.
On the other hand, Martin Luther himself described his "motivation" as coming first in his search for release from his guilt as a sinner, he re-discovered Romans 1: 17 – "The just shall live by faith". In his case "conviction" came after "motivation".
For Luther, "conviction" released him from being "convicted" (sin leads to death) using the word in the sentencing idea. I too find the idea of being sentenced bothering. Most of us have this same distancing sense of being sentenced. This leads me to another thought after some tangential reading on the "Four Temperaments" in that I may have some tendencies consistent with a Sanguine temperament, a personality type which would be particularly disagreeable to sentencing of any sort.
A possible connection
And this is where I see a connection (in the Christian sense of conviction) between "will power" and "Holy Spirit faith". A sense of conviction offers what is arguably the defining characteristic of human willpower, and I think that willpower is a powerful and inspiring force. I'm speaking of negative feelings of entrapment so as to avoid being sentenced (for sin or indeed even for any inconsiderate behaviour).
But this is where confusion reigns supreme (in academic thinking) where belief could be redefined to seem more interpretative to overcome the constraining nature of commitment to the belief. However this would undermine the ability to strongly commit to the belief in the first place!
This is a remarkable insight as it illustrates the connection between enabling willpower derived from the conviction sufficient to overcome those complementary negative connotations that the Sanguine temperament would find so unappealing! (ie not liking being sentenced for anything).
This option to me, like Luther, seems self evident since the whole point of finding a strong conviction to live by, is to overcome whatever life can throw at you, whether it be your own temperament or otherwise.
In theological terms, for some, such as Luther, the idea of a death sentence for sin is the motivation behind the will power to search for faith which carries the conviction. This is the very opposite to 'Holy Spirit faith' as the initial step in "conversion", however both models have legitimacy.
In the secular world in which I work, motivation and will-power are directly linked and once exercised, brings greater confidence. This applies both positively (as in achieving a positive work related outcome whether me or collaboratively) or negatively as in crime. The coinciding fear of "sentencing" applies to both.