“And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day” – Acts 23:1 (KJV).
The conscience is very important and pivotal in our Christian walk and in our service to God and humanity. One of the greatest harm of the fall is guilt and sin consciousness it imparted on man. Sin defiles the conscience filling the heart with guilt and denying man access to God and boldness to approach God. One cannot pray or exercise faith with conscience filled with guilt. Our guilt fills us with a sense of unworthiness, fear and timidity. It gives the devil foothold on us making way for his accusations since he is the accuser of the brethren. He tells us how bad we are and how unacceptable we are to God. Relationship is destroyed by guilt since there cannot be trust with a conscience filled with guilt. This affects our relationship with God and with people.
Even though the sacrifices of bulls and rams covered man’s sins, it could not heal or free the conscience from guilt. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” – Hebrews 9:13-14 (KJV). The sacrifice under the law was only a shadow or figure of the real sacrifice of the body of Jesus. The gift and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience (Hebrew 9:9) only the blood of Jesus could purge the conscience from dead works and free it to serve God without guilt and timidity. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of sound mind” – 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV). A sound mind is a mind rid of offence before man and before God. A sound mind can trust God and people and approach God with confidence and boldness knowing that the guilt is forgiven and washed by the blood of Jesus.
God imparts in us the righteousness of his son, Jesus, so we can come boldly to the throne of grace. Such righteousness gives us access to his presence. We become conscious of the imputed righteousness that we are able to resist the devil knowing that we are justified in Christ. We walk in life without condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” – Romans 8:1 (KJV). We are admonished to exercise our conscience unto godliness.
PRAYER: Lord, help me to live in righteousness consciousness.
Rev. Vincent Diolu