Today’s Thoughts – 14 October 2020

When we do wrong, we know we’ve done wrong because our conscience tells us we’ve done wrong. We get this overwhelming sense of discouragement and disdain towards ourselves because we have sinned. This is a sign of a good conscience. What is the sign of a bad conscience? A shipwrecked life. One who goes about doing whatever they desire to do not adhering to the warnings from their conscience.

This is what Paul is referring to here in 1 Timothy 1:19. He first charges Timothy to “hold faith.” For, without our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His Holy Word, our conscience would not function the right way. Each human has an internal moral code. However, that code is defined and cultivated by God and His Word. Stay in the Word until the Word gets into you and then stay there!

Paul also warns of what happens when people “put away” their good conscience. Their faith and their lives are a shipwreck. A scene of devastation and death. There is no life, there is no vitality at a shipwreck. There are only broken pieces and ruined lives. This is the result of a life, a country, and a society that puts God away.

The putting away spoken of here is a deliberate act by the person. Each person makes a choice whether or not to listen to their conscience or to put it away. Each person makes a choice whether to open the Word of God and read it. Each person makes a choice whether to live their life each day for Christ and conform to His image (Romans 8:29).

If that person deliberately chooses not to listen to their conscience, not to read the Word of God, and not to live their life conformed to the image of Christ, then over time, they will sear their conscience. And eventually, their faith in God and their life will become a shipwreck.

All you have to do is look at the example of our country and society today. Sixty years the Bible and prayer have been removed from our schools. A deliberate act of “putting away.” And what are the results today? A shipwrecked society full of destruction, death, and depravity.

Oh! That we would not put away the conscience God gave to us (for we are made in the image of God). But instead, hold to the faith, heed to the good conscience, and heartily live for Christ each day!