Let your conscience be your guide...God helps those that help themselves, Thou shalt not kill…money is the root of all evil… All roads lead to Jesus. What do all these saying have in common? They’re biblical truths, right? No. Deadly wrong.
"God helps those who help themselves" is probably the most often quoted phrase that is not found in the Bible. This is actually a quote from Ben Franklin and it appeared in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1757. In fact the Bible teaches the opposite. God helps the helpless! Isaiah 25:4 declares, "For You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat..." Romans 5:6 tells us, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." In terms of salvation, we are all utterly helpless. Nothing we can do on our own can remedy this situation (Isaiah 64:6). Thankfully, God is the helper of the helpless.
The Sixth Commandment reads, Thou shall not MURDER
The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Jesus Christ John 14:6
Let the conscience be our guide? What if the conscience of a man/woman is blighted, tainted, mucked, evil, twisted, equivocal, distorted, perverted, unnatural, etc. How can anyone be led, guided, in what is noble, right, moral, life in godliness and holiness? As Peter the Apostle exhorts his readers in 2 Peter 1:5-7 “…Give to all diligence, (and) add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
The Bible teaches that God has placed basic principles of His Law in every person's conscience (Romans 2:14,15). This operates whether or not the person ever reads the Bible or even has been told anything about God.
Shakespeare: Macbeth - “Better with the dead, whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, than our torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy.”
Richard III - “O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!”
Genesis 1:26-27 declares, “And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.' So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
Human beings were intended to have a relationship with God, and as such, God created us with both material and immaterial aspects (No physical substance; not made of matter). The material aspects are obviously those that are tangible: the physical body, organs, etc., and are considered to only exist as long as the person is alive. The immaterial aspects are those which are intangible: soul, spirit, intellect, will, conscience, etc. These characteristics are considered to exist beyond the physical lifespan of the individual.
Paul the apostle said that conscience is an inward capacity humans possess to critique themselves because our Creator provided this process as a means of moral restraint for His creation: A Critique Conscience that regulates a person in process of development.
Is a clear conscience important as a Christian believer?
1. Your fellowship with God - You won’t enjoy God’s presence.
2. Your faith—a guilty conscience and a strong faith just don’t go together (Heb. 10:22)
3. Your prayer life—Hindrance
4. Your desire for God’s Word—a troubled conscience can rob a person of his natural appetite for natural food, how much more for spiritual food.
5. Your witness - You want to open your mouth for the Lord....but feel hypocritical!
How can we cleanse our Conscience?
1. Immediate confession of sin - 1 John 1:9; James 5:16; Ps 32; 38; 51
2. Trust in the Promise of Cleansing - Hebrews 9:14
3. Obey your conscience - James 1:22 but be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
4. Continue to walk in the light - 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The Benefits of a clear Conscience—
Peace WITH God and the peace OF God
Peace with yourself
Peace of mind and heart
Faith, Hope and Love
Guilt-less, guilt-free, no condemnation
Emancipation! Freedom and liberty
Joyful, optimistic, secured, confident…living in truth
1 comments:
As solid as can be. Thanks to the Rock of our Salvation!!! Truth voiced gives me hope for our world. Thanks Pancho.
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