Your Conscience: Voice of your spirit

Colin Melbourne

© 05-08 Born-Again-Christian.info

Are you troubled by a guilty conscience?

God does not want you to be plagued by guilt. He wants to lift that burden from your shoulders, and give you a clear conscience.

What is your conscience, and why do you have one?

Born of God: Burden Gone

God took away your guilty conscience.

Remember how everything changed inside the moment you received Christ? He came into your spirit and made you a new creature: A new creation in Christ.

Clean, washed in His Blood, righteous before God, with new desires, and peace at last: You were born again: Saved.

For days you lived in a waking dream, old desires evaporated, replaced by righteous ones. When confronted with the opportunity to sin, you took a new path, followed a new Voice, and received the priceless reward of God's smile inside.

Do you remember the dawn of your enlightenment, the springtime of salvation? His Hand was upon you, guiding, and covering. Like a Father nurturing his child's faltering first steps.

You began to walk in revelation.

Behold all things were made new. That flint hard heart was replaced by a tender one, sensitive to God. Love reigned supreme, and deep joy welled forth even in difficult times.

A gentle, still, small voice had silenced your nagging guilty conscience.

What is Your Conscience?

Recommended Book

E.W. Kenyon was the first modern evangelist to understand the revelation of the new creation in Christ. His teachings inspired T.L.Osborn and others. Ken Hagin's book, 'How you can be led by the Spirit of God' is based almost word for word on a stunning chapter in this Kenyon book. Get it because you need it.

New Creation Realities

The relationship between your spirit and your conscience is intimate. E. W. Kenyon declares the conscience to be the voice of a person's spirit.

Before you were saved you had a conscience, the voice of your fallen human spirit. After you were saved God gave you a new conscience, the voice of your spirit united with God's Spirit.

The fallen human spirit walks in fellowship with the 'god of this world', Satan, and demons. (1 Jn. 5:19, 2 Co.4:4) It has a voice, the conscience, and it is utterly corrupt.

Sinners frequently assert that they are righteous so long as they don't go against their conscience. They choose their own deceptive standard of right and wrong, and inevitably fail to keep it.

The whole world is already under conviction of sin. That is why Jesus told us to go and tell the good news. Reflect on how many times you failed when you were still in your sins. Of course you put on a show of 'goodness', but you knew deep down that you were guilty, and so you feared death. You were condemned, and you knew it.

Now you look forward to death, staying only to complete the mission He's given you. (Eph. 2:10, Phil. 1:23-24)

Why We Have a Conscience

You are a spirit, you live in a body, and you have a mind, will and emotions (soul). Your spirit communicates with your mind through your conscience. But this is not the main way God leads His children.

...those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God... The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Holy Bible Ro. 8:14,16 NIV

This is the main way God leads His children. We call it the inner witness. It is not a voice, but an inner knowing. You simply know what God is leading you to do. It is the Holy Spirit in a believer guiding them, and completely reliable. Understand that He never scolds a believer, He comforts and encourages them. It is different from your conscience.

Christians who say things like, 'Jesus scolded me,' or 'God gave me a tongue lashing!' are plain wrong. What they are listening to is not God, but their own spirit. A Christian's conscience will certainly scold and condemn them when they sin.

That is why God's Word promises,

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 1 Jn. 3:21-22

'Our hearts' means our spirits, not God's Spirit. The Comforter doesn't condemn believers He comforts them.

So you see that the purpose of your conscience is to tell you when you are pleasing or displeasing God. Your spirit lets your mind know through your conscience.

God's Spirit communicates with believers through their spirits, not through their minds. The chief way God leads is by the inner witness. The second way is through a believer's conscience.

Paul always listened to his conscience and tried to keep it right:

I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.

I speak the truth in Christ - I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit. Ac. 24:16, Ro. 9:1

Note he measured his conscience against the standard of the Holy Spirit, because his conscience was not the Holy Spirit, but the voice of his own spirit.

Get Your Conscience Right With God

Christian! God wants you to take stock of your conscience right now. Examine it carefully, test it against His Spirit's witness in your heart, and see if your conscience is clear or not.

A clear concience is precious, and it comes by living faith in Christ's Sacrifice for you. He chose to die to give you His peace of heart, and mind. It was His idea, not yours. He came, bled and died, to redeem you from all sin, guilt and punishment.

Since you have been born again, have you held on to some sin, do you harbour a grudge, have you refused to repent when God has put His finger on something? Is there a cloud in your conscience? Are you carrying a burden of guilt? You don't have to dig around for it. Don't fall into the snare of becoming sin-concious, but if there is a blemish, (and you will know) get rid of it, repent immediately.

Confess it to God, turn away from it, and if it involves somebody else, ask them to forgive you. Put right what you can as far as you are able, no matter what the cost.

Sinner! You've never known a guilt-free concience, but deperately want what you've just read about.

Come to Jesus Christ and be saved from your sins. Forsake them, and accept His peace, His love, and His Life, and you will become a new person, righteous before God, and at peace. His Blood will wash away every guilty stain from your heart and conscience.

God wants to forgive even you... Come...