Your Conscience: God's Inner Voice - Part 1

Conscience is designed to govern our thoughts and action, urging choices toward what is right and pleasing to God. The job of conscience is to develop an acute awareness in the mind and spirit when there is danger of engaging in behaviors harmful to one’s values and self-respect. How important is your conscience to you.

Conscience has been called the inner voice of God, alerting us to unacceptable motives, thoughts and actions. It’s difficult to listen to the voice of conscience when secret desires and motives override what is acceptable to God. It isn’t sinful to have a bad thought, but to nurture the thought is a serious sin.

Proverbs 23:7 issues this warning: “For as a person thinks in his heart, so he is.” This warning is against having detrimental thoughts that result in wrong choices and hurtful actions. However, we can choose to have the mind of Christ, allowing our thoughts to be anchored in him. It’s possible to do this, but it takes determination. 

Must I Really Love THAT Person? - Part 3

When my granddaughter was four, she asked if we could take a walk around the neighborhood. About halfway around the block she asked, "Why is the sidewalk different? It's crumbling and I can see little shells in it." Her question caused me to question the values of the company who sold an inferior product.

The Roman Empire was among the first to use concrete for their structures, and some of those structures are still standing twenty centuries later. What gives personal values the sustaining power to withstand the trials and storms of life? Values must be firmly grounded in a clear sense of what is right and wrong.

God has given us Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit and his word to guide our walk through this world. The presence of God in our lives strengthens our values by telling us to strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love and the strength to endure. Whenever anything that is not pure, honest and true gets mixed into our lives, it must be identified and cleaned out. With God’s help, you can do it.