I must at all limes strive to maintain a good conscience before God. A good conscience is one in which I am not conscious of anything in me that is offensive to God. A good conscience is cultivated by a close walk with God; the farther from God I live, the more I will tend to have a weak conscience, one that is weakened by too much contact with the world. Thank God, no disciple ever has a dead conscience, one that is calloused or “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19, KJV). Nor will the disciple ever have an evil conscience, one that is twisted by doing much evil.
A good conscience is not automatic. It is the result of the habit of bringing my “condemned heart” before God, who is greater than my conscience, and who by His power gradually brings my conscience into the same sensitive state that He is in (1 John 3:19–21). My aim must be to live before God with an “uncondemned heart” (clear conscience) so that I may “have confidence before God” (v. 21). Nothing weakens my conscience and destroys my effectiveness in service more than having God stare at some things in my life that do not meet His approval. I must live the life of the uncondemned heart.
I can afford the criticism of the world, and even my Christian friends, if my heart is clean before God. I must never bow to criticism at the expense of my conscience, for that is the denial of my conscience. Nor must I ever allow the consciences of others to dictate what my conscience ought to be before God. For that reason I must repel social pressure to conform, and never lose my individual accounting before God. To become social clay is to deny my “good conscience” before God. I must always let Him be my shaper and molder (Jeremiah 18:6) so that I become not only a usable vessel, but a person made sensitive toward sin as He Himself is.
“Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).
Daily with the King 