DESIRE A CLEAN CONSCIENCE, The Conscience: When the conscience is purged from dead works, we serve the living God in a lively manner; and this begets a holy cheerfulness in the soul, and we are freed from that bondage that otherwise would clog us in our duty to God. The conscience is that faculty which includes a moral sense or power of discerning right and wrong. This faculty judges according to a divine law of right and wrong. It is not like the intellect, sensibility, and will, but it is that which constitutes the way in which one acts whereby he knows himself in connection with a moral standard or divine law. Second Timothy 1:3 says, I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience. . . In other words, the apostle was thankful that he served God according to the mandates of the law in the hands of Christ, as they were written upon his heart by the Spirit of God. The apostles’ conscience was free of guilt because of the nature of the heart which enabled him to serve God in a manner that delighted the inward man. From this example we can readily see that we are to serve God with a pure conscience thereby rendering our service to God as holy and acceptable, being our reasonable service. We are to act according to his standard as defined by His Word. There is a very distinct line drawn whereby we do not act capricious or spontaneous based on the universal depraved standards of the world. Rather we make judgments on the wrongness of an act based on the law OF THE SPIRIT IN CHRIST JESUS given to the conscience. If one has been redeemed from the fleshly thinking of sin, he should rightly adhere to a moral law that is given according to his new nature. Not to thus act is evidence to the fact that our nature is wholly unchanged. Therefore, in our pursuit of God and in our sanctification, our decision making process is determined by moral reason based on a proper standard. Now, one can see that the duty of enlightening and cultivating moral reason, so that the conscience may have a proper standard of judgment, is of utmost importance, but yet wholly dependent upon God first instilling within us a proper standard. When we act contrary to God’s will and our conscience does not condemn us, then we are not of God and our pursuit of God lies solely within our own efforts. Conscience, in the proper sense, gives uniform and infallible judgment that right is supremely obligatory, and that wrong must be forborne at every cost, it can be called an echo of God’s voice, and an indication in man of that which his own true being requires. If we operate in a state that is contrary to the revealed will of God, and believe that we are justified before God, then our conscience operates according to our depraved affections and desires; hence we have virtually a deceiving as well as a latent conscience .Notwithstanding this however, the normal sense of the distinction between right and wrong, as an eternal law to itself, lies indestructible even in the most depraved beasts, as it cannot destroyed, so it cannot be changed. This being true, what conditions and maintains the conscience? The answer is God, and God alone. In our pursuit of God, our soul thirsts after Him. God then is the strength of our soul; He is our sufficiency; we then believe that we are not self-sufficient in the changing of the heart; we cannot on our own come to a self-resolution; we cannot institute the change without the power of God. He works in us both to will and to do, and that of His good pleasure. In our pursuit of God we grow close to Him, we become more holy, and in the process, our definition, understanding, and application of the divine law so conditions the soul that we operate according to a pure conscience. Many of those that are committed to and are involved in the innumerable and diverse ministries of the church believe deeply that their involvement is due to the fact that their love for God demands such. They believe that their commitment to God is being fulfilled through their involvement. However this is not in itself a meter that gives the most accurate reading. Scripture tells us in Matthew 6:33, But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Now I realize that this verse of Scripture means that we are to first seek God rather or instead of those things that were our focus and priority as unbelievers. Nevertheless, the idea of seek first the things of God can only be fully realized through a close personal relationship with God. Do we really know God, do we fully understand God in a way that He is not only our Savior but also our closest and most intimate Friend? To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate, but He remains personally unknown to the individual. People have a tendency to make up their own creed using various odds and ends and develop their own understanding of an ideal God and then call this relationship. Our seeking after God is a desire of the soul that we seek Him that first sought us. Our desire is for Him. We thirst after Him. Our prayers are direct to Him. Yes, as a result of our relationship and our newly imputed righteousness we shall do the things of the kingdom but we must never think by merely doing, what is defined as Christian duty, we therefore are pursuing God. Our pursuit of God is to bring about an inward revelation of the Godhead. Jesus says in John 14:7, If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: There are many that claim to know the Son of the Father without knowing the Father of the Son.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:58:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015