Like It or Not, Change Will Come - Part 2

At every stage of life, change is imminent. Change opposes complacency or the status quo, but we're often hesitant to make even small changes. We know and understand that change is needed, even desired, yet anxiety creates opposition because of the uncertainty of not knowing exactly what lies ahead.

Benjamin Cardozon said of the judicial process, “Nothing is stable or absolute. Everything is fluid and changeable. Evolving or becoming is never finished.” When we’re forced to think about life, we would agree. When everything is on the line and we’re forced to accept change, there is a strange hesitance to move forward and accept what life offers.

In Malachi 3:6 God issues a warning and a promise: “I the Lord do not change.” God challenged his people to return to him and he would return to them. Returning and trusting God gives assurance to insecure people facing continuous challenges. Jesus promised us, “Look, I will be with you always.” You can trust his promise.  

Like It or Not, Change Will Come - Part 1

One enemy of decision-making is complacency, a quiet contentment or satisfaction with what life has presented. A very wise thinker who lived four hundred years before Christ wrote, “We know what needs to be done, we understand it clearly, but we can’t bring it to fruition.” This attitude gets disguised in excuses that negate empowerment.

I had a conversation with a person who recently changed careers. After earning a Master’s degree, she left where she’d worked since graduating from college. Where did her empowerment come from? Her faith included trusting God’s guidance and provision for the resources to step out of complacency and accept the challenge God made available.

Remember the woman who believed if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ outer garment, she would be healed? She refused to stay home and suffer hopelessly in silence. Instead she searched for healing and found it. Jesus said Thomas, “Be not faithless but believing.” This is an essential empowerment for change and a contented life.  

Conscience, Courage and Confidence - Part 3

As a late adolescent, one of the most amazing concepts I encountered was that as a person, as a Christian, I had the privilege of choosing what to do with my life. True to form, as with most adolescents, as I matured so did my thinking patterns.

Deuteronomy 30:19 encourages you to “choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, and listen to his voice while holding fast to him all your days.” Is the failure to choose God, in effect, choosing to die? To choose life is to choose Christ Jesus, for he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

The choice is critical, and the option is life and the blessings from obeying God. Choosing Jesus and his word is choosing life filled with meaning and purpose. No matter what circumstances you’re facing, choosing to trust Jesus is choosing life filled with hope, adventure and security. May God be with you.  

Conscience, Courage and Confidence - Part 2

Choice and change are essential to each person’s sense of freedom. Even in dismal situations where freedom is limited, choice and change still can be activated. Choice by its very nature indicates that options are available, along with the power to set in motion changes that have lifetime benefits.

One of the benefits of making significant choices is the opportunity to consider available options. When God said, “Let us make man in our image,” this attribute for choosing was part of the design. Have you ever wondered why God created mankind with this incredible ability to make choices and then take definitive actions to assure change takes place?

Each time a choice is initiated, change is automatically activated. Choosing to be available to God’s transforming work sets in motion changes that endures for life, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is power to be transformed into his likeness. It is my hope that this will be your choice.  

Conscience, Courage and Confidence - Part 1

Without exception, it takes unusual courage to give God permission to direct your life. God told Noah to build the ark, gather animals and wait for earth to be flooded. Moses left his family and safety to confront the most powerful man on earth and demand that he free the Hebrew people.

Courage connected to a healthy conscience, coupled with confidence that God directs your life, generates assurance that any task can be accomplished. A clear conscience produces courage to tackle with confidence whatever you believe to be God’s will for you.

Listen to this request to God found in an eleventh century hymnal:  

God be in my head, and my understanding;

God be in my eyes, and my looking;

God be in my mouth, and my speaking;

God be in my heart, and my thinking;

God be at my end, and my departing.

With God occupying these areas of your life, you are assured of a clear conscience and success in what you choose to do.  

Act with Confidence and an Active Conscience - Part 3

History is replete with individuals who were overly confident in their skills and abilities. In 1863 Joseph Hooker, General of the Union Army, remarked: “My plans are perfect, and as I execute them, may God have mercy on General Robert E. Lee, for I will have none.” Months later Hooker resigned after he was defeated by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

God intended for leaders to have confidence, to be trustworthy, to believe in themselves. Too much pride and too little compassion create false confidence. False confidence led to General Hooker’s defeat. Healthy self-confidence is strengthened by our confidence in God’s faithfulness.

The Apostle Paul registered his confidence in the church at Ephesus. He also spoke of his confidence in the Gospel and his confidence in Christ Jesus. This kind of self-assurance reassured these early Christians that Paul’s conscience was clear, and this gave him the authority to speak the truth as God revealed it to him. 

Act with Confidence and an Active Conscience - Part 2

Webster defines confidence as faith to act in an effective, proper way. Judith Hardwick in The Plateauing Trap states, “Real confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself, your strengths and limitations rather than depending on affirmation from others.” So, confidence depends on an effective, healthy conscience.

Confidence also depends on knowing what is trustworthy. Psalm 116:7 states assuredly, “Be confident, my heart, for the Lord has been good to me.” Experience gave the Psalmist assurance God could be trusted with whatever he had to face. God can be trusted to warn us of attempts to deviate from what is trustworthy.

God’s word makes us aware of appropriate boundaries to center our lives around. Micah 7:7 provides encouragement: “I watch in hope for the Lord. I wait confidently for God my Savior to hear and save me.” So, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. Our conscience gives witness to these facts.  

Act with Confidence and an Active Conscience - Part 1

The conversation between Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden indicates Eve knew the difference between right and wrong. Her choice forever changed her lifestyle. Adam also demonstrated a breach of conscience when he felt ashamed to show himself to God. Adam and Eve, however, demonstrated steps to take when our conscience condemns us. 

Adam stepped out from hiding and admitted to God that he was afraid, guilty, and ashamed. A clear purpose of the conscience is to bring into acute awareness the fact of wrong choices. God created Adam with freedom of choice, but with boundaries, so he would realize freedom to choose is a privilege.

Privilege and choice are yoked together, as is the freedom to obey God and serve him. We have freedom to come before God to confess and seek forgiveness when our conscience condemns us. We like Adam should be afraid and embarrassed, but like Adam we can show courage and step out from hiding and confess our sin to God.  

Follow God's Searchlight: Your Conscience - Part 3

Personal freedom depends on having courage to follow the conscience, which isn’t easy to do. Threat of personal embarrassment, peer pressure, or the need for acceptance may result in failure to heed the voice of conscience. When the voice of conscience makes you aware of wrongdoing or sin and you obey, you feel stronger and more self-assured.

Failure to follow your conscience eventually culminates in the loss of personal freedom. A man confided that when he was an adolescent he became indebted to a store owner in his small community. Time elapsed and he failed to pay the debt. Shame stole away a chunk of his integrity. The store owner died and the debt remained unpaid.

Our conscience pushes for right to be done, for amends to be made, apologies to be spoken, and forgiveness to be sought after and given. Courage is the avenue to a clear conscience. Listen to 1 John 3:21. “If our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage before God and will receive from him whatever we ask.” What a wonderful promise! 

Follow God's Searchlight: Your Conscience - Part 2

Hermann Goering, commandant of the German Air Force in World War II, proclaimed: “I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolph Hitler.” Goering committed suicide after being found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg. Goering’s testimony demonstrates the danger of invalidating the conscience and sinking into depravity.

While it’s important to have a mentor or leader whom we can respect and who serves as a point of light, no human being should be allowed to become your conscience. Blindly trusting another person to have all the right answers and always to have your complete respect eventually disappoints, for no person is perfect enough to substitute for your conscience.

A person who obeys his or her conscience will be blessed and rewarded by God himself, as David experienced in 1 Samuel 24. Here David listened to and obeyed his conscience. David knew God’s will and purpose and that choosing to follow God’s plan would result in receiving God’s blessings and a clear conscience. This can be your choice.  

Follow God's Searchlight: Your Conscience - Part 1

God desires for each person to recognize him as supreme Creator, who graciously sent Jesus to be our Savior and Lord. He intends for us to repent of our sins and accept Jesus as Lord of our lives. God also desires for each person to live up to his or her potential for making the world a better place to live.

There are barriers that prevent us from realizing our potential and enjoying the rewards God desires to give us. Our conscience puts up roadblocks where there is unresolved guilt indicative of attitudes and choices unbecoming of a believer in God’s grace and mercy. Failure to live up to our potential indicates poverty of mind and spirit.

A relationship exists between realizing your potential and the confidence your conscience sanctions. Real confidence comes from allowing Christ Jesus to have a prominent place in your life. Then by God’s grace and mercy your conscience is free of guilt and shame, and you can live a life pleasing to God. 

Allow Your Conscience to Accuse or Excuse - Part 3

The Apostle Paul consistently encourages us to assess what we’re striving to acquire, and at what price? C. S. Lewis noted, “We’re all given to seeking after material possessions and even conversion does not at once work the infection out of our system.” What gave the Apostle Paul the will to press on toward the mark of his high calling in Jesus Christ?

The Apostle Paul’s usage of the words “press on” implies being consistently vigilant to accomplish God’s purpose with no consideration of giving up. The conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, helps us choose what is good, righteous and godly and then stay focused.

Ignoring the conscience disrupts fellowship with oneself, significant others, and God the Father. The voice of conscience, permeated by the Holy Spirit, speaks to alert us when there is danger of going against the conscience’s directives. Christ Jesus instills in us his righteousness to strengthen our conscience to ensure that fellowship between us and God the Father continues. Isn’t that a wonderful thought? 

Allow Your Conscience to Accuse or Excuse - Part 2

I overheard a young person express with exasperation, “Why should I follow my conscience? I’d never have fun. What difference does it make? I’d be bored to death and no one would notice I exist.” Even if we deny the existence of our conscience, it still functions and implores us to do what is right, regardless of the outcome.

We may tell our conscience, “Be quiet! Shut up!” Yet there is still an awareness and knowledge that we should behave in accordance with the guidelines of the conscience. C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity explains that being aware of the conscience is not enough to keep us from disregarding it.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” 1 John 5:3 confirms that loving God means doing what he tells us to do even though it may be difficult.” Isn’t it interesting that loving Jesus parallels appropriate, godly conduct? Love for Christ Jesus, love for others and love for self inspire compliance with what the conscience requires.