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CONSCIENCE

Do you have a conscience? what does that even mean? Most of us hear that word being thrown here and there once in a while and are just glad that we are able to spell it, but conscience is a lot more than this, and certainly way beyond being a consciencious being.

The New Testament explains that the end goal of the christian charge is, as well as a pure heart and a bold faith….. a good conscience (1Ti 1:5) which being detached from faith leads to spiritual shipwreck (1Ti 1:19). Paul explains that his joy rested on the testimony of his conscience (2Co 1:12) and therefore practiced having a conscience void of offense toward God and men (Act 24:16). He required any minister of the Gospel to themselves have a pure conscience (1Ti 3:9) and instructed that any brother who sinned against another by wounding their weak conscience was in fact sinning against Christ! (1Co 8:12) Peter went as far as to say that it was thankworthy to suffer wrongly in pain for the sake of a good conscience (1Pe 2:19).

So we can see that for the first century’s apostles, a clean conscience was extremely important. But why?

The writer of the book of Hebrews puts it this way: Christ’s perfect sacrifice’s blood perfects us by sprinkling our heart from an evil conscience and purging it from dead works that we may draw near the living God to serve Him (Heb 9:9&14; 10:22). God wants us to be clean to serve Him. Notice that Hebrews 10:22 does not just talk about our heart beind sprinkled with blood to purge our conscience, but also speaks of our bodies being washed with pure water. It reminds me of the washing basin the Old Testament priest had to use to wash themselves every day of their service, in which basins worship utensils also were plunged (baptised). Peter also associates water with conscience when he says that baptism also saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and then explains that it is not about washing the body, but about the request to God for a good conscience (1Pe 3:21). God loves a good conscience and gives us one when we enter baptism. It is our job to maintain it, as per the first paragraph of this post, which you may want to re-read.

I could not pretend to understand the complete mechanic of how God cleanse our conscience at baptism, I can only relate to what I have experienced and what I can understand from God’s words, but I know that we are priests to the world, a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9), just like the Jews of the Bible were supposed to be. As such we must be clean at all times, without spot from the world, and ready ourselves to eternally serve our God in a way pleasing to Him. To maintain a clean conscience is diffictult but we ourselves have a high Priest that pleads for us and is always attentionate and who is with us until the end of times. let us stay close to him and always in prayer, moving in our service and priestly duties, starting the day always in the presence of God.