Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide Series

(1) Your conscience must be cleansed by His blood

When people have a guilty conscience they do all kinds of things to get rid of their guilt. In certain areas around the world people crawl on their hands and knees up steep mountains to reach a church or altar. They think these painful acts of penitence will absolve them of their guilt. Other people throw themselves into religious activity trying to get rid of their guilt. But the Bible teaches that there is only one thing that can clean a dirty conscience–the Blood of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:14)

In Hebrews 9, the writer emphasizes that the blood of all the goats and bulls sacrificed over the years was not able to forgive a guilty conscience. But when Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God died on the cross, His blood alone can cleanse our dirty consciences. The reason we need a clean conscience is because we are all guilty of acts that lead to death, not merely physical death, but eternal separation from God. Salvation consists of coming to God and admitting you are guilty, you have a dirty conscience. It is asking God to cleanse you of your sinfulness. It is accepting by faith that you have been cleansed by His blood.

We all need to ask ourselves the question posed by the hymn writer Elisha Hoffman: “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood? In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

(2) Your conscience must be corrected by His Word

I once read a story of man who worked in a small town factory. One of his jobs was to blow the factory whistle every day at 7, 12 and 4. Every morning on the way to work, he stopped and set his pocket watch by a large clock sitting in the window of a local jewelry store. Then he would know when to blow the whistle. After doing this for years, he happened to visit the jewelry store on the weekend. He asked the owner how the clock in the shop window kept such perfect time. The owner said, “Oh, I set that clock every day by the factory whistle.”

Your conscience is like a clock: If you set it to the wrong time, it will keep the wrong time, and it will be unreliable. But if you set it to the right time, it should be dependable. When you become a Christian, you “set” your conscience to the Bible–Word of God. We read in II Timothy 3:16-17: “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” God’s Word always points you to Jesus and He becomes your standard for right and wrong.

When you become a follower of Jesus Christ, your determination of right and wrong is no longer dependent on your conscience because you know you can’t let your conscience be your guide. You don’t decide what is right or wrong by how you feel, because you have learned feelings can be unreliable. Your standard for morality is NOT what the majority of other people think, because most people think it’s okay to tell a lie every now and then.