The Supplied Life Devotional for May 22
The voice of conscience
"This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men." Acts 24:16
Learning to follow the voice of conscience is the proper way for a believer to learn to hear the Lord's life-voice within. This is because our conscience is interrelated with our regenerated spirit (cf. Rom. 9:1 with 8:16). So, if our conscience is not clear, our spirit cannot properly function and be released. This is a crucial principle in our Christian life.
Our conscience may be regarded as the leading function of our spirit. In his own life, Paul maintained the principle of keeping a clear conscience. He testifies in Acts 24:15-16: 15 "I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. 16 This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men." Paul exercised himself to keep his conscience clear so that his relationship with the Lord would be up to date, and also so that he would be ready for the judgment seat of Christ at the resurrection of the righteous. Thus, it is important to have a relationship with the Lord that is governed by the voice of conscience.
The voice of conscience is God's appointed means for man to learn to be inwardly regulated (Rom. 2:14-15). The conscience approves or disapproves our actions and words (Rom. 13:4-7). The basic lesson of learning to live by the Lord's voice in us is to learn to listen to the voice of our own conscience (cf. 2 Tim. 1:3 with Rom. 1:9). If we do not practice this, how could we discern the requirement of the Lord's life in us? Therefore, in our daily life when the Lord is teaching us to hear His voice, the first lessons we learn are to pay attention to the voice of our own conscience. When we follow the requirement of our conscience by obeying it over matters pertaining to right and wrong, we will be inwardly genuine and exercised to learn the requirement of the Lord's life in other areas related to the intuition of our spirit (2 Cor. 2:12-13).
- Bill Freeman, The Supplied Life