“Is Your Conscience Clear?”
Have you ever did or said something and afterwards, your conscience was not clear? You started thinking, I should not have done that or why did I say that? Perhaps you feel guilty and ashamed. Maybe you have something that you are doing in secret that bothers your conscience. God has given each one of us a conscience. A conscience is defined as an inner feeling or voice viewed acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior. In other words, it is a built-in sense of what’s right and wrong. Is your conscience clear?
Acts 24:16 says “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” Our goal should be to keep a good/healthy conscience before God and man. A good conscience is satisfying to one’s soul and brings sweet peace. There should be nothing in between our soul and our Savior. God gave us the conscience as a warning system and it is up to us to pay attention to the warnings. We should not ignore it.
One of the keys to having a good/healthy conscience is having a close relationship with the Lord. The more we pray, read, spend time with God and have good conduct, the better our conscience will be. Spending time with God makes our conscience more sensitive to the things of God. When people do not have a sense of God, His Word or His ways, their conscience is defiled. Evil behavior and constantly yielding to temptation can easily turn a good conscience into a bad conscience. Have you ever wondered how a person can just shoot, kill and move on with life as if nothing happened? Their conscience has been defiled with God and man.
Our prayer should be for God to give us (our spouse, children, family, friends and everyone) a good/healthy conscience. “A healthy conscience discerns between good and evil, and it gets weighed down with guilt over wrong doing. This sense of guilt should motivate you to take responsibility for your actions and seek forgiveness when you have done something wrong.”
The Benefits of a Clear Conscience (Reference: Basic Life Institute)
“A clear conscience enhances your relationships in every sphere of life and brings many benefits.” Here are a few:
A clear conscience gives you . . .
- Power to over come temptation.
- Prompts you to live honorably.
- Alertness to make wise decisions.
- Boldness to witness (unconfessed sins can make you ashamed).
- Freedom to resolve conflicts and build friendships.
- A firm foundation for the Christian life.
Until next week . . .
Carolyn
Marriage from A to Z 
Thank you for this blog on a ‘clear conscience’. I have been guilty of not clearing my conscience. Right away the Holy Spirit stepped in… saying, “that conversation or situation did not go well”. Immediately, I asked God to afford the opportunity to have the conversation again or mend the situation, and He did! Every time when He afforded me the opportunity, often I am in a better place in my thinking! Yes! It is important to cultivate a close relationship with the Lord to keep a health conscience. I love the benefits that I have received of keeping a clear conscience! Thanks again for this gentle reminder of the importance of clearing my conscience!
Still a working progress… Him in me!
Agape
Thank you for taking the time to share. I really appreciate it!