Hebrews 9:14 (NLT), “Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”

The dictionary definition of a conscience is: An inner knowledge of right and wrong. This definition is pretty accurate to what the Word of God portrays the conscience to be. The Bible indicates that mankind received a consciousness of right and wrong after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in Genesis 3. Directly after eating of, it, Adam and Eve, instinctively knew shame and guilt and hid themselves from God. In verse 11 of Genesis 3, God asks and answers the question of how they knew they were naked. Implying, how they knew they did wrong in His sight. His very next words reveal the answer: “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Obviously, needing to have a conscience was not the plan of God for us, however, in His foreknowledge, He knew that left to our own devices, outside of Him, we would have no moral compass of our own. In Romans 2:14-15, Paul spoke about the purpose of a conscience, before we are saved: “Even (unsaved) Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know His law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.” (NLT). One commentary says that by nature, the Gentiles were not following a written law but rather acting according to an innate sense of right and wrong. By their conscience, they had a moral compass to live by. However, Paul made it clear that even “doing the things contained in the law,” would not save anyone. When we become born-again, and we continually renew our minds to God’s Word - we allow our conscience to be influenced by the truth of who we are in Christ. In other words, we no longer live conscious of sin but understand that the blood of Jesus has cleansed our conscience from the shame, guilt and constant fear of punishment! We can live free from guilt and condemnation as we are empowered, by His grace, to live by His Spirit, and not our sin-nature that was crucified on the cross with Jesus! Today, see yourself as God sees you. You were once a sinner, who was saved by grace. Now, you are a new creation! You are the righteousness of God, living a life controlled by His Spirit - in Christ Jesus!