THE
SWEETNESS OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE
BREAD
13 Who
is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But
even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what
they fear; do not be frightened.” 15 But
in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to
everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do
this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping
a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good
behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 1 Peter 3:13-16 (NIV)
18 Timothy,
my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made
about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience.
Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. 1 Timothy 1:18-19 (NIV)
18 Pray
for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live
honorably in every way. 19 I
particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon. Hebrews 13:18-19 (NIV)
30 “When
the LORD has done for my master
every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over
Israel, 31 my master will not
have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having
avenged himself. And when the LORD
has brought my master success, remember your servant.” 1 Samuel 25:30-31 (NIV)
6 I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my
conscience will not reproach me as long as I live. Job 27:6 (NIV)
1 So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ
and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. 2 Now it is required that those who have
been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I
care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not
even judge myself. 4 My
conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who
judges me. 1 Corinthians 4:1-4 (NIV)
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a
clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 2 Timothy 1:3 (NIV)
12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have
conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in
the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to
worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace. 2 Corinthians 1:12 (NIV)
16 So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God
and man. Acts 24:16 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Lose
everything rather than lose your integrity, and when everything is gone, still
hold fast a clear conscience as the rarest jewel that can adorn the bosom of a
mortal.” C. H.
Spurgeon
“Many people today feel guilty for one simple reason: they are
guilty. The Bible says we are all guilty before a holy God. And all the
psychological counseling in the world cannot relieve a person of that guilt.
You can pretend it's not there or find someone else to blame for your problems,
but the only real and effective way to remove guilt is to get to the root of
the problem, which plainly is sin. There
are a lot of people today who have a guilty conscience. That is what Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, discovered. One day he
decided to play a joke on 12 of his friends. He sent them all a message that
said, “Flee at once. All is discovered.” And within 24 hours, all 12 of his
friends had left the country. I think that is having a guilty conscience. It
was just a joke. Nothing was discovered. But these people felt so guilty about
something that they got out as quickly as they could. Guilt can be good—it can be God's warning
system to alert us to a problem. When I am beginning to do something wrong,
guilt kicks in. It says, “Stop! Red alert! Don't go any further. This is a bad
thing.” Guilt is there to remind us we are crossing the line, and we should not
go any further. Do you have a guilty
conscience? Maybe God is telling you something. Maybe you should pay attention
to your conscience. Then you can be refreshed by the presence of the Lord.” Greg Laurie
“Grace
remits sin and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but
Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever. Only Christians possess this
victorious knowledge given from above. These two terms, grace and peace,
constitute Christianity. Grace involves the remission of sins, peace and a
happy conscience. Sin is not canceled by lawful living, for no person is able
to live up to the law…the fact is the more a person seeks credit for himself by
his own efforts, the deeper he goes into debt. Nothing can take away sin except
the grace of God. In actual living, however it is not so easy to persuade
oneself that by grace alone, in opposition to every other means, we obtain the
forgiveness of our sins and peace with God.”
Martin Luther
“God
looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if He had taken up the sins
of His people, or as if they were laid on Him, though that were true, but as if
He Himself had positively been that noxious—that God-hating—that soul-damning
thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, ‘Where is Sin?’ Christ
presented himself…what a grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up
into one mass—murder, lust and stealing, and adultery…and the Father looked on
Christ as if He were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on
upon Him as made sin for us. Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt,
takes on our iniquity and God treats Him as if He had been sin…How can any
punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast
upon Christ and Christ has suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith
to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks
me, ‘Yes, it is true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it
all upon Himself and suffered in my place.”
Charles Spurgeon
“When the Bible speaks of ‘following Jesus’ it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from all man-made dogma, from every burden and oppression, from every anxiety and torture which afflicts the conscience. If they follow Jesus, men escape from the hard yoke of their own laws, and submit to the kindly yoke of Jesus Christ. But does this mean that we can ignore the seriousness of His command? Far from it! We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when His command, His call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirety. Only the man who follows the command of Jesus without reserve, and submits unresistingly to His yoke, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard—unutterably hard—for those who try to resist it.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Give me grace to surmount all difficulties, and to avoid everything that may prove a torment of conscience in the hour of death.” K. H. Von Bogatzky
“Lose all rather
than lose your integrity, and when all else is gone, still hold fast a clear
conscience as the rarest jewel which can adorn the bosom of a mortal. When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and
not by sight. Do God the honor to trust
Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle. See whether He will be your debtor! See if He doesn’t even in this life prove His
word that ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain,’ and that they who ‘seek
first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to
you as well.’ To wear a guileless
spirit, to have a heart void of offense, to have the favor and smile of God, is
greater riches than the mines of Ophir could yield.” Charles H.
Spurgeon
“To worship is to quicken the
conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to
purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of
God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” William Temple
“The peace that
Jesus brings is divine peace, the peace of God, the only peace worthy of the name.
Divine peace is the only permanent peace. Divine peace is that kind of peace
you feel inside even when the world is falling apart all around you. Divine
peace is peace of mind, peace in your conscience, peace with your Christian
brothers and sisters, peace with your boss and coworkers, peace with your
environment, peace with your world. When you have peace with God, you have the
peace of Christ that transcends human understanding. Even if the sun and moon
turn dark and the stars are shaken from the sky, we can sleep peacefully,
knowing that Jesus, who commands the winds and the waves with His word, is the
Lord of the earth and sky. He slept soundly in the middle of the storm—and so
can we.” Michael Youssef
HEART SAVOR
·
A clear
conscience is to be adorned as with a rare jewel.
·
A clear
conscience brings sweet rest to the soul.
·
Avoid all
that would torment your conscience.
