Live With a Good Conscience

Not everything on social media is bad. On Friday’s we publish something we’ve found good, informative,  thought provoking or challenging on facebook.

Today’s Facebook Friday is a post I found on Daily Bible Notes by Andy Sochor from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Andy’s article on the topic of conscience spurred a few thoughts of our own.

After Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, the Roman commander arranged to have him appear before the Jewish Council (Acts 22:30). He was trying to find out why the Jews were accusing Paul and calling for his death.

Paul began his defense before the Council by saying, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day” (Acts 23:1). This was a remarkable statement. Too often, we do things we know are wrong, but in a moment of weakness, we do things we should not do.

Yet Paul could say that he maintained a “perfectly good conscience.”
However, that did not mean that Paul never did anything wrong. He zealously persecuted the church before his conversion. He told Timothy he was the “foremost of all” sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Yet he did this with a good conscience! However, when he learned the truth and realized he was wrong, he immediately repented and started doing what was right.

This is important for us. We are not sinlessly perfect. We have been guilty of transgressing God’s law, and we may do so again in the future. We must be open to correction and make changes when we see what we need to do differently.

So live with a good conscience. Like Paul, we should zealously do what we know to be right. At the same time, when we learn that we were wrong in some moral behavior, religious practice, or doctrinal teaching, we must make corrections in order to maintain our good conscience and not stubbornly hold onto those things that should be abandoned.

Andy Sochor

“Conscience” is defined by W. E. Vine, as “a knowing with” or “a co-knowledge with oneself.” Furthermore, he writes, that the conscience bears witnesses to one’s conduct as we understand God’s will and “is designed to govern our lives”

Used 30 times in the New Testament, Conscience is described in various ways.

A “good conscience” 1 Pet. 3:21

An “evil conscience” Heb. 10:22

A “weak conscience” 1 Cor 8:12

A “clear conscience” I Tim. 3:9

A “seared conscience” I Tim. 4:2

A “defiled conscience” Titus 1:15

The condition of our conscience depends on the extent to which it’s influenced by the Word of God. By a clear understanding and a proper interpretation of the Bible. The more we saturate our minds and hearts with Scriptural principles and precepts, the more accurate guide the conscience will be.

However, if we allow false information to infiltrate our minds, and subjective emotional feelings to fill our hearts, we will be less likely to be correctly guided by our conscience.

A good and pure conscience is felt when we obey Christ’s commands, live faithfully to His Word, and conduct our lives in accordance with moral, ethical and spiritual direction it provides.

However, when we knowingly violate God’s will, refuse to heed His counsel, and defiantly travel our own path, then we defile our conscience and soon will sear it to the point that sin doesn’t bother us anymore.

Of course, those who’ve never been taught right from wrong, or who’ve long ago rejected God and His moral absolutes, are not surprisingly guided by an evil conscience where they’ve become a law unto themselves.

By keeping our hearts tender, our purpose divinely directed and our minds filled with a knowledge of His Word, the conscience, as C. S. Lewis expressed it, can be the “voice of God within our souls; the bridge that links the creature to the creator.”

Thanks, Andy, for the reminder to “live with a good conscience.”

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman

Click here to read past posts from Facebook Friday.