Your Conscience...Your Friend

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,  from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk,  desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.--1 Timothy 1:6-7

To My Beloved Daughters,

Our conscience is a gift from God.  Our guilt is a good indicator to us that we have somehow offended it or distressed it in some way.  I have read that the Puritans called the conscience "the spy within our bosom."  I really like that.  The conscience, if you think about it, really does stand kind of separate from us and speaks to our hearts from a position of authority.  Ignoring it is NOT a good idea.  Your conscience is your friend...it is your ally in your battle against sin. Our conscience and God's truth work together to set us free from the prisons of sin and guilt.  As we surrender to its promptings and allow His word to do its work and root, James says it acts like a mirror. It reflects our heart to us and transforms us as we surrender to what the Spirit of God shows us.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.--2nd Corinthians 3:18 

Hebrews tells us that the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  

God, by the blood of Christ has cleansed our conscience to serve Him.  We can and should walk blamelessly before Him.  As you read and study His word ask  God to make your conscience tender...to show you those things that He wants you to see.  Ask Him to search your heart and show you any fear, any anxiety or any sin and lead you in the way everlasting.  Confess your sin immediately and ask His forgiveness...don't put it off.  Guilt festers...your conscience will not clear itself but will become loaded down, defiled, and burdened.  Unexamined actions and unresolved conflicts and issues will spill over into other areas of your life and not in a good way.   After a while you will not even know why you do the things you do or the what or why of what you are feeling.  Your load will become heavier and heavier..your mind will darken and anxiety and depression will set in.  Listen to your conscience as soon as it speaks and do not go against it.  Do not allow it to become defiled, seared or hardened by ignoring it...bring those things it shows you before God immediately in prayer.  When we confess our sin 1 John says, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  He died for us when we were yet His enemies.  How much more can we count on Him as His child.  He has given us all things necessary for life and godliness and blessed us with ALL spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.  He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all how shall He not also freely give us all things?  Jesus Christ, the Righteous, is our Advocate. He is not unconcerned or forgetful but lives to make intercession for us.  

Beloved, nothing can separate us from His love...turn your heart upside down before Him and allow Him to cleanse your conscience and heal your soul.  

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It isChrist who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.