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Getting Your Conscience Back on Track


God has given us different means for us to know the difference between right and wrong. They include the ten commands in Exodus 20, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and many other commands. There is no excuse for saying, “I didn’t know it was wrong.” He has also given us civil and criminal laws in Romans 13 and other people we should obey: our slave masters (1 Peter 2), our fathers (Ephesians 6), and our husbands (Ephesians 5), and, finally, He has given us a cleansed conscience (1 Corinthians 6:11).

The difficulty with our conscience is that it cannot be trusted. Paul says it this way:

“My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Corinthians 4:4).

There are several reasons for the conscience not working properly.

• It has adjusted to the culture. “Everyone does it” or these are the “laws of the land.”

• It has deliberately, willfully, not conformed to the Scripture.

• It has been “seared as by a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1-3). Its nerve endings are dead.

To get the conscience back on track, pray Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Then confess what God has shown you. You can tell when your conscience is clean and working by the joy you will have in the Lord’s salvation.

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:7-12).

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