HAVING A PURE CONSCIENCE ; STRIKING THE BALANCES BETWEEN DIVINITY AND HUMANITY. ; ODUYOYE JOSHUA

HAVING A PURE CONSCIENCE ; STRIKING THE BALANCES BETWEEN DIVINITY AND HUMANITY.

TEXT; act 24;6 and hereing do I exercise myself ,to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man
Other reference;1 timothy 1;18-20 , 4;2,1corint 8;12

There is nothing so wonderful as having a mind filled with peace ,lavished with joy , overflowing with love , and fully sold out to a lover who is God the father of our lord and savior Jesus Christ , but the power of a pure conscience and ability to strike the balance as we live among men is the great deal or bone of contention which can be resolved by spiritual insight and wisdom .

You can for real tell that we live in a world with people having different beliefs and value systems. What is wrong according to my values maybe be right to another. How do I know right and wrong? Our conscience acts like a grid system that sends a stop signal when something wrong hits it. Can you trust your conscience to give you the correct warning regarding right and wrong?….. on this as a Christian the bible remains our standpoint and search light on this matter.

Just before I continue , I had like to shear with you a short story ,I know you like stories..it will help us have a better picture on what the consciences is . In 1984, Avianca Airlines,had a crash, it hit so hard on a mountain, that when it was finally located ,it was too late everybody died, the plane is all over the place. but Finally, they found little black box which has the cockpit recorder on it so they can get the dialogue that’s going on in the cockpit just before the crash so they can reconstruct what happened…..please pay attention to this …..They get the tape out of the little black box and found a frightening discovery when they listened to the tape. The cockpit recorder indicates that just before the crash, a computer synthesized voice from the plane’s automatic warning system starts saying, “Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up,” in English. Inexplicably the pilot shouts back, “Shut up, foreigner,” flips off the switch. Within seconds, the plane hits the mountain and everybody is dead.

What a parable of the way conscience is intended to work and how dangerous it is not to listen to it. Conscience isn’t a body of information, conscience is simply a warning device. It’s just a shrill computer voice that says, “Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, hold it, stop, don’t do that, stop that, you’re headed for a crash, stop here,” that’s what conscience does.

Conscience is a human faculty. It’s not divine. It’s like pain. Pain is not a divine faculty, it’s human. Everybody’s got it. Is pain a good thing or a bad thing? Pain is a wonderful thing because it warns you you’ve got a physical problem, and if you didn’t have pain you wouldn’t know you had a problem and you’d die. What conscience does is tell you something is wrong in your spiritual life. That’s a parallel.

The Bible Point to us four different types of consciences.

1. A seared conscience.

1 Timothy 4:2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have being seared as with a hot iron.

2. A weak conscience.

1 Corinthians 8:12 When you sin against them this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

3. A corrupted conscience.

Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.

4. A good conscience.

1 Timothy 1:18-20 18Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, 19holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. 20Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
In those days, ships were the real deal so Paul used it as a perfect illustration for the time . If Paul lived today he was to writ to the present timothy am sure he would say they made air crash of their faith. The truth is that If you don’t allow your consciences, you’re going to crash and burn just like the plain in my story .

From our main text we see Paul speaking about a clear conscience, he saw that as a priority and would not limit the priority to just men like everyone would do but will consider God first,who is the author of his existence . Act 24; 6 and hereing do I exercise myself,to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man.

Its important to understand that its no mistake for Paul to put God first in this conversation “void of offence towards God and towards man” and then man came in next , human are incapable of doing the right without divine help , so allowing God control the reality of our existence is key in having a pure conscience in the first place . let quickly see how to have a clear conscience ….. are you set for this ?

HOW TO HAVE A CLEAR CONSCIENCE;

1. Feed on God’s word.;

Give accurate information to your conscience.
Its important to note that Our conscience functions like a skylight. The skylight doesn’t have any light. It just lets light in. Conscience is a skylight, it doesn’t generate its own light. It can only let you…it can only shine on you what’s in that belief system so you need to feed your system with God’s word.
Back to the Short story about the plan crash, the flight had a fully informed little voice and the little voice said, “Pull up, pull up,” because it was properly informed. The pilot was foolish, “Shut up, foreigner,” means, “I don’t care what the little voice says, and I don’t care how well informed it is, I’m going to ignore it.” You don’t want your conscience to be wrongly informed, or it isn’t going to have the capability to tell you the right things.
Romans 2:15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. Now what does it mean? Based on your information, you conscience accuses or excuses.so you need to feed on the word: Psalm 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

2. Sensitize your conscience to God’s word.

On this note I advice you to have a belief system based on God’s word. The conscience responds to your highest system of morality. So if you have a low sort of belief system, your conscience will be sensitive only to that.
There are believers who know that lying is a grave sin but lie just like anyone else in the world. You know the word but your conscience has not been made sensitive to that particular sin. Therefore, in spite of knowing the word you sin.
Believers indulging in sin, adultery, fornication etc. They know it is wrong but they are not sensitized. Going back to the airplane story . Why did that little computer start saying, “Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up,” how did it know to say that? Radar. Radar was sending out a beam in front of that airplane and it told that little voice in that electronic system how close the plane was to the mountain.So, you want to make sure your conscience is well sensitized and the way you sensitize your conscience is the values you derive from God’s word. It has to be made very sensitive so that it tells you the right message at the right time.

3. Deal with sin where it starts.

You have to deal with sin where it starts. Where does it start? In the mind. James 1:15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. So you have to deal with sin when it starts, in your mind. Don’t think that if you’re not doing sin on the outside, you’re okay. There may be constraining reasons why you’re not doing it on the outside, and you may be ten-thousand times worse on the inside than you are on the outside. You’ve got to deal with sin there or sooner or later, it will get out. Numbers 32:23 And you maybe sure that your sin will be found out.

Now no sin is more destructive than the sin of the mind because it has only conscience to fight it. We always say it’s really important if you’re going to grow in Christ to have accountability. To have a friend, somebody who disciples you, you can be accountable to.But do you know something? There are people who are close to you and they know the way you behave, and they know the way you talk, and haven’t got a clue the way you think. And they might think, how holy you’re. But the truth is, inside you’re full of foul odor.its truly at this point that divinity must take hold of you .See the conscience is all alone in there slugging it out. At least on the outside you’ve got your friends to help you. And if you’re married, you’re not about to do that stuff that you think to do because it really would mess up your marriage, right? If you lived out all your mental sins?
So when you sin in the mind, and you cultivate sins in the mind, you just assault your poor conscience all the time cause it’s in there battling all alone. You want to know something about sins of the mind? They’re so deadly because they don’t wait for special opportunity, they can happen anytime. And it’s relatively easy to confess and forsake the sins of the outside, but it’s awfully hard to get rid of the ones on the inside.

That’s where you’ve got to start. You’ve got to really start before God to deal with what’s going on in your thought life. on this note let me quickly show you four ways in which your mind can sin

Four ways your mind will sin.

1; Remembering the Past.;

The first way your mind will sin is by remembering past iniquity. All of us have got sin the past, right? Have you noticed how your mind will drag you back through it? And you know what happens when you do that? You’ve sinned it again. In God’s eyes what’s going on in the inside is sin, just as much as the out, right? David said in Psalm 25:7 Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. You know what he was asking God to do? Forget what he couldn’t forget. God, I cannot forget what I did when I was young. You want to hear some good news? You may remember it, but if you confess, God doesn’t. Hebrews 8:12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. But every time you remember them and cycle back through them, you commit them again. Now, the mind sins not only by going back but by going forward:
2;Scheming about the future.
The sins of scheming. Over and over again in the Psalms and the Proverbs we read things like, “They were devising evil plans.”
Psalm 64:4 They encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares.
Proverbs 12:20 Deceit is in the hearts of those who plot evil.
Psalm 36:4 Even on their beds they plot evil; they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong.
He lays there and he dreams and schemes how he’s going to cheat. Scheming to vent your anger or your hatred, your lust, your greed, your envy, your covetousness, your discontent, your selfishness, your pride. And that’s scheming and even though you haven’t done the sin outwardly, you’ve committed the sin already in the mind.

3; Fantasy of the present.

That’s sins of fantasy or imagination where your mind is sinning in the present tense. David knew that’s where the struggle was. David sinned with Bathsheba but the sin on the outside was only an expression of the inside, right? So what did David pray? Psalm 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Start with the inside. How do you do that? Ask God to reveal your sins on the inside, name them, confess them. Be honest with God and do it daily. this is a key way to create the balance between divinity and humanity .the last but not the least is Evil attraction

4; Evil attractions.

It doesn’t do any good to try to deal with sin of the mind, if you’re exposing yourself to what generates it.Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mokers. in the book of Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. even job who was named a righteous man understood the power of divine help in this matter of having a pure conscience as he prayed to the lord in consecration Job 31:1 I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman
There’s some things I had like us to see from the letter to the Philippine church ;

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. The colossian church also have something to tell us in Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

If you’re going to deal with sin on the inside, take control of your mind, take captive every thought: 2 Corinthians 10:5 We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Finally on this note on how to have a pure conscience

4. Cultivate loving God;

We wouldn’t think of doing something on the outside that somebody we care about would see. But I will commit sins in my inside where no one can see. Do you know that God knows your thoughts? God can see your inside. That’s a sad commentary on who’s important to us, isn’t it? Just ask God all the time, “Give me the grace to love You with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Make it so that I would rather offend everybody in the world than to offend you.
Conclusion: Paul had a very clear conscience. Look at the testimony of his conscience on trial before Felix.

Look at his conscience addressing the accusations of the Corinthians against him: 2 Corinthians 1:12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity.

Paul says, “Now that I’m on trial, I’m going to go to the highest human court.” God is the highest court of all cause He’s divine. But on the human level he says, “I’ll go to the highest court and I will say to you, ‘My conscience tells me that I am clear, holy, and godly. 1 Corinthians 2:11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them?
Is your conscience telling you that? Is that what you know to be true about you on the inside? Your friends don’t even know that. Your wife, your husband may not even know that.

Our generation of people is silencing their conscience on one hand and giving it bad information on the other. May I just say to those people who might wonder if you can really, permanently silence conscience? The answer is, in this life you can.

You can so ill-inform it that it doesn’t function and you can so ignore it that it’s finally silenced. But there’s coming a day when you can’t silence your conscience. Do you remember reading about hell? Those who silence their conscience will end up in hell.

Well, that’s true. But I’ll tell you something. The heat’s not going to be only on the outside, the heat is going to be on the inside because in hell, every individual will have a fully informed and relentless conscience, accusing them forever and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever without relief. That’s what hell is. And that’s why there’s weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. And every sinner will know that every pain they feel, they deserve. And they will know that they deliberately and freely and gladly chose the lifestyle that led them to hell. And every charge against them and every indictment, and every pain they suffer is absolutely right and absolutely just and there will never be any relief. That is a frightening reality.the preachers also said in Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil and as we have seen from our text Acts 24:16 So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. My prayer for you, my desire longing for you is that you would be able to say, “The testimony of my conscience is that in holiness and godly sincerity I have conducted myself in the world.”

Can we pray together ;

Father I thank you for your grace and ability to give us a clear conscience, Lord I pray for all reading this content ,that you would grant them a clear conscience in Jesus Name .Amen .

Thank you very much for following the this write up ,do check up for another powerful and refreshing discussion..