Reflections

Conscience - A Compass

Both prayer and daily Bible reading  are essential to the continuance of God's abundant life in our beings. But there is also a third item of priority - the development of a sensitive conscience. Conscience is the capacity within us to decide what is right and what is wrong, but it decides is largely determined by the training it has received. Some people have little or no conscience because their parents did not take the time or trouble to teach  or train them, whilst others have an oversensitive conscience  because their parents made excessive demands upon them. Paul killed people in all good conscience until his conscience was brought into contact with Jesus Christ and then things changed dramatically. Someone said, "We make our conscience and then our conscience makes us."

When we come into the Christian life we bring with us a conscience that was trained  by parents and those connected with us in the early stages of our development. We need, however, to surrender our consciences to the Holy Spirit so that He can refocus them in line with His principles. If conscience approves and disapproves within the framework of what it is taught, then it must be our constant aim to subject it daily to the standards of God's Word so that it can be kept transparent, perfectly balanced and clean. A truly  Christian conscience is one of the highest priorities in Christian living and without it the abundant life which flows in our beings will be neutralised and invalidated to a great degree.