What does your conscience say?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the first way to tell if you are sanctified or what I am calling evidences. The first question to answer was whether or not you had truly made a total surrender to God. Now that we have answered that let us find the next place to look for evidence.
According to Steve DeNeff the conscience is a good place for a believer to look. In Whatever Became of Holiness he asks, “So is there any friction against the will of God within me?”[i] Our conscience is kind of like an internal moral compass which God has placed inside of us. If we have been ignoring our conscience for years we may think there is no rub in our conscience but we know if we have been doing this or not. If our conscience has not been distorted by years of neglect it will give us an honest answer, if we are willing to look in it and listen to it.
Christian/country comic Jerry Clower was famous for saying of the conscience, “If you are arguing with yourself about whether or not to do something, and you have to talk yourself into doing it; you are fixin’ to mess up!” This is a very simplistic way to approach life but sometimes simple is better. God gave you a conscience. He gave it to you to help you know the difference between right and wrong. Some old-timers including myself even though I am not old I was raised by two old-schoolers, would describe the conscience by saying that what ever you do today you have to sleep with it tonight and if you can do this and still sleep well tonight then your conscience is okay with it.
You may say, “Well, what about those who seem to do bad things with no remorse? Is their conscience leading them astray?” I would probably say yes. Consciences will usually lead us well if it has been properly programmed. Consciences will always lead us the way it has been set to lead us. There are no bad consciences, just bad programmers. There are some who have no conscience and do not ask me why. Some of the mysteries of the human brain are unexplainable even by the most educated experts amongst, us of which I am not one.
So back to the question at hand; is there any friction against the will of God with your conscience? If there is none then your can answer yes to this question and move on to next week’s evidence. If not you need to camp-out here before moving on and deal with whatever the rub or rubs may be. HOLD UP; WAIT A MNUTE! Before you answer yes to this and move on there is one more layer to this onion that needs to be peeled away. I mentioned earlier that if there have been years of ignoring your conscience you may not feel that there is any rub. What this means is that you have conditioned your conscience to accept whatever it may be that you have been ignoring as acceptable behavior even though it is not. Truth does not change just because you have reprogrammed your conscience. Just because a car is engineered and programmed to go 150 MPH does not change the speed laws in this country.
You can however get around this glitch in the circuit. Your brain remembers if you have been doing this or not. So before you move on, dig deep into your memory. If your brain tells you that you have been doing this, then you need to take a much deeper and more honest look into your conscience. Many are afraid to honestly look because they are afraid of what they may find; afraid that it may count them out as being sanctified or even saved. I ask you, “What is the first step of salvation?” No, before asking forgiveness. No, before repentance. No, even before confession of sins. Hopefully you settle on this; admitting that there is a problem. First you have to admit that there is a problem that needs confessing before you can or will confess it, repent of it, and then ask forgiveness for it. First you must admit that there is an issue. So now I ask you, “Do you really think God is going to punish or demote you for doing exactly what He tells you to do?” He ain’t cruel like that. The fact of the matter is that the issue(s) are there whether we look for them or not. Finding them is not the issue that would count us out of holiness; those issues being there and our not doing anything about them is the issue that would count us out.
So one more time, “How’s your conscience? What is it telling you about your faithfulness to God’s will?” Talk to me, david.pastorrock1@gmail.com

[i] Steve Deneff, Whatever Became of Holiness, Wesleyan Publishing House, 1996, pg. 142