Your Conscience

Dear Friend,

How is your conscience? I'm talking about that sense of moral awareness or of right and wrong that we have built into us. Sometimes we take it for granted, and seem to ignore it. Others try to quiet it and make it go away by closing their eyes to its promptings or rationalizing away what is making their conscience bother them. But did you know that God gives a lot of credit to the moral awareness that He placed in each of us?

The Bible, in Genesis 20, tells about Abraham in his travels when he stayed in an area where a king decided that Abraham's wife Sarah was just too pretty to pass up. So Abraham told the king that she was just his sister, and the king took Sarah down to the palace. That night God said to the king in a dream, "You're as good as dead for taking someone else's wife." Hmmm, sounds like God doesn't look too fondly on those who are with someone else's wife! Anyway, Abimolech replies to God that he didn't know she was married to Abraham and that "I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands." So look at God's reply: "Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her."

Isn't that interesting! God essentially is saying, "Because you did this with a clear conscience, I've stepped in to make sure you don't sin." But what if his conscience had bothered him? I don't think God would have stepped in, since God would have already warned him through his conscience. I think we need to start listening to our conscience and obeying it more often!

In Job 27:6, Job says that his conscience has not bothered him as long as he lived, and God backs that up by saying that Job was a blameless man that did not even sin with his lips!

Paul realized the importance of keeping his conscience clear. Several times he defends himself by saying that he has a clear conscience. In fact, he says, "So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man" (Acts 24:16).

Why not listen to your conscience? Ask God to speak to you; and then when you feel that something is not right, or you should do something, or you need to wait, then listen to your conscience! Most of the mistakes I make I can look back and see that my conscience was prompting me beforehand, but I ignored it and went ahead anyway. I want to say, like Paul, "I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience…" (1 Timothy 1:3).

Remember, "When it doubt, cut it out!"

Mark