SPIRITUAL CONVICTION.

Conviction means "the act or process of convincing; the state of being convinced; or a fixed or strong belief." Thus, spiritual conviction means the one derived from and based on a commitment to the Word of GOD. It is the absolute index for the whole of our lives: -Faith and practice.
The original source of conviction is emotion. They testify to the distinctive quality of the human mind, the instrument of thought. The 'wish' is father to the thought and breeds Truth. The strength and direction of forces that shape men's convictions furnish the decisive motive power of its spiritual or material universe.
People have believed and continue to believe what they are told and taught to believe. Man follows to it responsively.  No moment of thought or action is exempt from the rigidity of the established way of life of today. In terms of efficiency this factor is the worldly definition of conviction. Its field of operation is wide, that is why the need to inquire into the mental processes that generate and direct our spiritual conviction becomes imperative.
In the Scripture, the first man gives us a good example of the meaning of conviction when he expressed in his thoughts the idea of the type of helper he would need to complement him. The narrative says: Then the Lord GOD said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."  So out of the ground the Lord GOD formed every Beast of the Field and every Bird of the Air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called Every Living Creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord GOD caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept HE took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord GOD had taken from the man HE made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of Man."  (Genesis 2: 18-23)
Man had dominion over all the forces of nature and they responded at his call. There was a purpose in GOD's putting man in the garden alone for a period of time. It was to show him that he had a need, that he needed someone to be with, one agreeing and answering to him, a helper, in order to be complete. Woman's creation was indirect, for GOD took her out of man to reveal the fact that she is part of man.
GOD took her from the man's side to be equal with him, to be along with him. GOD intended man to take the lead -GOD created him first- and HE created woman to follow.
Man is the spiritual aggressor -even physically- and woman is the responder. She became the other half of man and he is now subject to his wife in the sense that he is responsible for her. Here is a couple whom GOD really joined together. He is only half a man without her and that thought played its role when she gave him the prohibited fruit to eat.
Man has free will and because privilege creates responsibility, he must be given a test to determine whether he will obey GOD or not. Man's kinship with GOD, man's worship of GOD, man's fellowship with GOD, man's service to GOD, man's loyalty to GOD, man's authority from GOD, and man's social life from and for GOD are the Scriptural message to humankind in order to make them know where they are placed, the occupation that they perform, the condition upon which they are with and the entitled responsibility, the need for brotherly companions, and when the spiritual conviction of a believer is made upon these principles then GOD's creation of the spiritual marriage of man and woman have a meaning which is His Church.
The fact that worldly conventional conformity occupies our today background, constant in its presence, shifting in its setting, jointly operative, plays a huge role against to the spiritual atmosphere beneficial to new believers and the edification of the ones looking for conviction in their beliefs.
Similarly important is the fact that in any liberal and modern spiritual environment, conformity escapes from a very narrow and stereotyped conviction, and encounters the rivalry of conventions, the contest of opinions, and the competitive selection among the loyalties. Congenial beliefs are the one absorbed in the social environment and the uncongenial ones shunned.
But with an expanding knowledge of the Word of GOD, spiritual conviction tenaciously hold in the mind of the believers, convinced and confident that it is Truth. It stands opposed to doubt and skepticism.
Convictions have a definite impact on how a person lives, on what he does, and where he goes. It is really the product of 3 things: -commitment; -construction; -courage.
In the early chapters of the Book of Isaiah, we see the nation of Israel destitute in its leadership because its leaders adulterated, polluted and diluted their minds with ideas and opinions of the World, and putting them as their index for life, abandoning the Word of GOD. They were like immature boys who acted not out of spiritual conviction, but out of their fleshy caprice -from the whims and fancies of their wants and selfishly-motivated opinions. The transformed themselves into beings without spiritual convictions. This resulted in expedient and arbitrary decisions where the end justified the means. (Isaiah 1:21)
The Second Book of Peter provides another illustration of the necessity of spiritual convictions based on the Word of GOD. The basic problem was the apostate leadership of false teachers who were leading people astray in both doctrine and in moral behavior and it did not occurred overnight. Unrighteousness is invariable linked to ungodliness and ungodliness is linked to unsound doctrine or rejection of the Truth.
2 PETER 2: "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the Way Of Truth will be reviled. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep."  (2: 1-3)
"Bold and willful, they are not afraid to revile the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment upon them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed, reviling in matters of which they are ignorant, will be destroyed in the same destruction with the angels who sinned, suffering wrong for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation, carousing with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed." (2: 10-14)
If we do not reckon with its early symptoms and protect ourselves by a right position of conviction and behavior toward the Word of GOD, we gradually become desensitized and more and more open to the deceptions of Satan.