clear conscience – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

Afterward, David’s conscience bothered him… (1 Samuel 24:5)

What do we do when our conscience bothers us?

If we want to keep a soft heart before God, our conscience is our first line of defense against sin.

But we can sear our consciences by ignoring it when we do something wrong. (1 Timothy 4:2)

How do we know our consciences are seared? When the sin that used to bother us no longer does so.

That would happen to David later, and only after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan did he repent and have his soft heart restored. (2 Samuel 11-12).

So let us always strive to keep a clear conscience and a soft heart, praying with David,

Who perceives his unintentional sins? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:12-14)

A clean conscience

Paul says something very interesting in verse 4.

For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Corinthians 4:4)

I think Paul would say that it is important to keep a clean conscience before God. That is what he strove to do.

But he also realized that the human heart can be deceitful. We can fool ourselves into thinking we’re okay, when in reality we’re not.

In fact, when he wrote these words to the Corinthians, Paul seemed to be thinking of what God had said through the prophet Jeremiah.

The heart is more deceitful than anything else,
and incurable—who can understand it?

I, the Lord, examine the mind,
I test the heart,
to give to each according to his way,
according to what his actions deserve. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Compare those words to what Paul says in verses 4-5.

So what am I saying? Should we always be worrying about whether we are clean before our Lord?

Should we always be thinking to ourselves, “Is there some hidden sin that I’m unaware of? Is there some wrong motive that I haven’t noticed in my own heart?”

No. I don’t think God wants us to live in a state of perpetual fear and guilt.

Nevertheless, it is good to have a heart of humility before God.

It’s good to pray each day as David did, “Search my heart. Show me if there’s anything wrong there.” (Psalm 19:12-13; 139:23-24).

If God shows you something, then confess it and ask for forgiveness.

If not, then thank God for the grace you stand in.

The truth is, if God were to show us all our sins at one time, we’d be overwhelmed.

But by his grace, he will strengthen us until the end, and we will stand blameless before him on the day of judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:8)