Step 4 – How Do You Build a Good Conscience?
Ok folks, let’s continue with our Bible Study of how to arrive at a good conscience towards God and men.
Last week we started this Book of Acts Bible Study and we discussed three of seven steps to attain good conscience. This week we will conclude it.
So, when Christ came, he ended the Old Covenant and he introduced the New. He made this possible through his obedience to God by dying on Calvary.
Additionally, he widens the reach of his New Covenant, because now it not only reaches all the Jews but it encompasses the whole world.
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 10:15-7).
Embrace The Savior of The World
When we are born again this Covenant of God becomes applicable to all, both Jews and Greeks.
As a result, now the whole world has a Savior and not just Israel. He is Jesus Christ the Savior of the world.
“Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard [Jesus] ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the [Savior] of the world” (John 4:42; Matthew 1:21; 1 John 4:14).
Role of the Holy Ghost in Attaining Good Conscience Towards God
If we embrace Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World, then we will obey his instructions concerning how to be born again.
He alone knows the route to a good conscience before God. Because his is free from offenses before God and humanity.
He informs us how to be born again. Our obedience to him yields pure consciences before God and man and faith in him.
Therefore, when we experience charity from a pure heart the result is an undefiled conscience.
But to get to that place, we must be born again. For it is only after the new birth that Christ replaced the Old Covenant in us with the New one, Jeremiah 31:31.
It’s only after we are born again that he replaces our hearts with “fleshy” or soft hearts.
He miraculously exchanged our hard and unforgiving ones for soft, fleshy and meek ones.
And it’s at this point that love or “charity” flows from the heart. Therefore, embrace pure hearts because from them ebbs charity.
Subsequently, we enjoy love, a good conscience, and faith when we obey Jesus concerning the new birth.
What is Christ’s Role in a Good Conscience Towards God?
Therefore, as we traverse the Scriptures to determine how to attain good conscience before God and men, observe that Christ is at the center of it.
Jesus came that we might embrace love. And this only happens if we believe in him and embrace him, for he is love.
Step 5 – Holding Faith and Holding a Good Conscience
Nevertheless, love is not the only emission from a pure heart, for a good conscience also flows from it.
Recently, a lady that I know for about five years asked me a shocking question.
Rhetorically she asked me, “If God is good, why would He kill my husband and leave me alone and with no one to assist me?”
She didn’t expect an answer. But quickly and confidently I informed her that the Lord God didn’t kill her husband.
I further explained that Jesus Christ gives life. He restores life to humanity, but Satan comes to kill. He is the one that took her partner.
She was dumbstruck!
She informed me that she always believed that God took him home to be with Him.
I told her how He established a life span for all of us, but Satan tries to kill us, if we allow him, before we get to God’s appointed day for our death.
This is an untimely death.
Read “Living Soul” and get the details on this.
We Can’t Be Bitter About a Matter & Maintain a Good Conscience Towards God
Additionally, her words revealed a corrupt conscience. Hers was replete with offenses against God for supposedly and prematurely taking her husband!
In order to attain a good conscience before God and humanity, we must enter into spiritual warfare.
But we must enter “holding faith” and simultaneously “holding a good conscience” in order to be victors.
Apostle Paul says we “have made shipwreck” if we lose faith!
Note, friends, how a good conscience is useless without faith. If we “put away” faith in God from us, we have also abandoned our good consciences toward Him.
Nevertheless, good conscience having charity as foundation always yield faith.
“This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare;
Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Timothy 1:18-20).
Step 6 – Embrace Faith Unfeigned
Before Christ, the route to righteousness was via obedience and performance of the dictates of the Law.
Everyone, with no exceptions, became righteous before God by obeying and doing His commands.
There was no need for faith. What would they hope for when they could obey and be righteous?
But when Christ came, he satisfied all the demands of the Law and introduced faith in God through believing in his words.
Now that faith has come, we no longer need carnal ordinances or “dead works” to be righteous. We don’t need the Law.
We only need obedience to Jesus Christ and belief in his words.
And one of the benefits of believing in Jesus Christ is the birth of a pure heart.
It yields a pure heart because the words of Jesus Christ (the Words of God) is the seed for the fruit of love.
Consequently, our belief that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God is powerful.
For when we believe this, we will accept his words. And eventually, a belief in the Words of God germinates, love, faith, and a good conscience towards God because the incorruptible seed has grown into an everlasting tree of hope and righteousness before Him.
Step 7 – The Pure Heart
To conclude, let’s recap the steps leading to good conscience towards the Lord God and humanity.
First, we must acknowledge that the Law of Moses is weak. It cannot cleanse our consciences from dead works.
Second, we all need to acknowledge that we are all sinners before God, and third that Jesus Christ is the end of the Law for any person who desires to be righteous before God.
He’s the only way to God.
Fourth, we must embrace Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World. He is the only begotten Son of God and he is the only route to God.
So, when we accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, we will believe his testimony, obey his words, and receive his Spirit.
Next, because Christ is the end of the Law when we believe in him, and receive his Spirit (the Holy Ghost) we have charity, a good conscience, and faith.
What are the Benefits of Forming a Good Conscience?
Sixth, faith came when Christ came! Before he came righteousness was by obeying and doing.
But when he arrived, he changed the procedure, so now it’s by believing and obeying. We still are “doing” but now the emphasis is not on it but believing.
However, there is no faith without action. Therefore, “doing” is secondary.
It’s only important to the extent that it’s a manifestation of our obedience and a demonstration of our belief in God.
Finally, these are some of the immediate benefits of possessing a pure heart and a good conscience towards God and men.
But we could only attain to pure heart if we are born again according to Christ and his disciples.
Have you been born again according to the true Word of God?
