A Blameless Conscience (2)

I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men. (Acts 24:16, NASB).

Folklore advises, "Let your conscience be your guide." This has serious limitations since our conscience is a function of our mind. The first problem arising from depending solely on our conscience is that our conscience can be wrongly programmed by our experiences and the values of the people around us.  Until we come to Christ, our standard is the world system in which we were raised.   What are we doing to renew our conscience so that it is a trustworthy mirror of the Holy Spirit’s voice within us?

My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. (1 Corinthians 4:4 MSG)

Numerous people’s lives are incorrectly guided by a guilty conscience—guilt that does not come from doing wrong, but is a psychological guilt usually developed in early childhood.  These person’s consciences are programmed by false messages they receive when trying to please parents and other care givers, in developing relationships with other children and teachers at school, in comparing their circumstances with others.  They begin to interpret their world according to what has happened to them.  Since we all live in a broken and hurting world we receive mixed and twisted information about what is right and good. We are told we are bad or good because we do this or that but the truth regarding the affirmation may not be accurate.  Our conscience is seared by this misinformation and our actions begin to reflect what we have come to believe. 

Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God.  The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith. But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. (1Timothy 1:4-6 NLT)

God is ready and willing to guide us into the knowledge of all truth.  Today, let’s ask God to examine our belief systems and help us understand what truth is, and is to be accepted, and what is false, and is to be rejected.  Only God is wise enough to help us discern this and program our consciences accordingly.

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