Sharpening the Conscience

I heard a message by John MacArthur recently that spoke about our conscience. He said that God has given us two safeguards to keep us from destroying ourselves. One is pain, which alerts us to physical problems and the other is our conscience that warns us of moral problems. The other fact he mentioned is that everyone is born with a conscience from God but it can be trained or neglected. Examples of a neglected conscience are people, young and old, who destroy someone’s life and show no remorse. A well-trained conscience can be trained to a variety of standards. Terrorists can kill innocent people and keep a clear conscience because they have trained it to believe they are doing right. This made me contemplate the conscience in regards to raising our children. The reason God tells us to never let the law depart from our mouth and to teach it to our children all through the day in every circumstance is because of their conscience. It is our duty to train it to know God’s law so that when they break it (which we all do) their conscience will not be clear. It is a warning mechanism we are sharpening so that when they are away from us or grown up, they will have their conscience to guide them. A sharp conscience is most important because it makes us feel guilty. Now, you might think, why do we want to feel guilty?! Our guilt is a gift from God because it is ONLY by the blood of Jesus that our guilty consciences can be cleansed. “since we have confidence to enter into the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, havin our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience” (Heb 10:19-22)
I am so thankful that God has given each of us a conscience. We are told meditate on God’s law and renew our minds daily so we can know when we need to confess our sins to God, be forgiven and be FREE from guilt! Only in Jesus can we be guilt free because he has taken ALL our judgment and punishment in our place! I’m SO THANKFUL that I can be clean and guilt free on a daily basis!! When you see people turn to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and all other manner of addictions, it is to deaden the guilty conscience. It is our duty to put God’s law and commands before our children so that their consciences are sharp and ready to be stricken by guilt to bring them to their Savior. Do not neglect this important role you play in that will effect the rest of their lives.