October 10, 2019 A CLEAN CONSCIENCE AND A CLEAN HEART
Hebrews 10:22 “let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of our faith, having our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The book of Hebrews goes into great detail describing how the new covenant is far superior to the old covenant. Christ gave His life and shed His blood that we might be forgiven and restored to fellowship with our Heavenly Father. One of the blessings of the New Covenant is that our hearts and our conscience is cleansed from all the defilements and sins of the past! We all know how miserable it is to live with a guilty conscience and a heart that is impure. We may feel that we have so much garbage from the past that we can never again enjoy a clear conscience. Even though we have all sinned and made bad choices, God has made a way for us to live in newness-what a blessing. We cannot cleanse ourselves from and evil or a guilty conscience; if we are depending on our own effort to do so, there is no hope for us. We must shift our thinking from what we can do to what God has already done. When through faith and believing God’s word, we shift our thinking and awareness to what God has done, we find forgiveness and cleansing; we begin to see ourselves as God sees us. God sees us as His sons and daughters who have been forgiven of all sins and who have been made righteous-all because of the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf; it’s all about what He has done! Our call is to discover all that God has done for us and to align ourselves with His plans and purposes for us. Until we discover our new identity as His sons and daughters, our life as a believer will be at best a spiritual roller coaster. Even though God has done all that is necessary for us to live in wholeness with our conscience and heart being made clean, we have a part to play. We must make the choice of walking according to the Spirit, or according to the flesh; we must choose to be renewed in the spirit of our mind and walk in the new person God has made us. The essential part of this is to learn of our true identity as a believer and then live out of that identity. Be willing to examine what you perceive as your identity and be willing to explore who God says you are according to the scriptures. He has made us new creations with new hearts, new minds and a new spirits-let us receive that amazing truth and begin to live like the new people we are-free from the power of sin. 1 John 1:9 above tells us that if we sin, He forgives us and cleanses us.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Blessings.
Buddy
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