Can I trust my conscience?

Is your conscience at rest or condemning or recommending you?  Can our consciences be trusted?  Recently, at our Time Out Bible Fellowship, we discovered together life-truths in 1 John 3.  The Holy Spirit impressed these verses so much on our minds and hearts, that they came up again in conversation a week later. 19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 if our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us. So, with one of those themes, ( "conscience") alive in my own conscience, Kevin de Young's writing about Luther and his conscience, leapt off the internet page and made a few somersaults!  I also post it for our far-away grown-up children, because how often don't we wish we could be chatting about these for example, with our dear ones around a kitchen table. Kevin writes: "As Christians, we don’t think about the significance of our consciences as much as we should. Of course, the conscience is not infallible. It can be evil (Heb. 10:22), seared (1 Tim. 4:2), defiled (Titus 1:15), or weak (1 Cor. 8:7). But that doesn’t allow us to ignore our conscience. There are more than a dozen occasions where the New Testament makes a positive reference to the testimony of the conscience. For example: •Romans 9:1 “I am speaking the truth in Christ-I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.” •Hebrews 13:18 “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honourably in all things.” The conscience was not the final judge and jury in matters of the heart, but it is one of the most important witnesses to bring to the stand.  Here's how the Puritans put it, “God’s spy and man’s overseer.” It is our prosecuting attorney, and just as importantly, the conscience is also our defence attorney, helping us face false accusations and slanders of the evil one (Rom. 2:14-15). Having a conscience is a mark of being a sentient adult. The conscience is what separates us from the animals, which is why Pinocchio becomes a beast when he ignores his conscience and persists in deceit. Conscience is indispensable to being a human being that lives the good life, enjoys peace with God, and lives a life pleasing to God. In a day where we are encouraged to do whatever feels good, in a day where a moral compass is thought to be prudish and narrow, in a day where the state thinks nothing of trampling on the liberty of consciences, we would do well to remember what the Bible says. •Acts 24:16 “So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.” •1 Tim. 1:5 “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” •1 Peter 3:16 – “Have a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who revile your god behaviour in Christ may be put to shame.” If you are caught in sin and your conscience accuses you, turn from iniquity. If you are smitten with regret for past mistakes and offenses, run to the cross. And if you are faced with the choice to follow the world or obey your conscience, pray for the same courage that descended upon Luther at Worms. The interrogation was no short affair, but by the end Luther had summoned his courage, concluding with these famous words: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, for going against my conscience is neither safe nor salutary. I can do no other, here I stand, God help me. Amen.” “Conscience is either the greatest friend,” Richard Sibbes once remarked, “or the greatest enemy in the world.” Don’t ignore his wisdom.  There is no friend like a clean conscience and no enemy like a conscience doing its God-given work. Turn from sin and turn to Christ. Stand your ground. Get on your knees. Be a captive to the Word of God which setst you free and shows you how you can set your heart at rest in His presence. I do hope you have time to follow this link to Kevin de Young's article, here.

Catchy tune about God's solid and protective love for us.

Here's catchy tune expressing

something of God's solid care and

our confidence in life.Psalm 55:22


http://ministry-to-children.com/video-psalm-55/

Happy Families?

This post states the well-experienced riddle about close family life.  It touches on the answer. ie  "gospel". However, without some definition of "gospel", that word remains a code word.  I'm in the middle of preparing for our weekly discovering together of 1 John and it's thrilling to see how the gospel works through love. As soon as the content of the Time Out study is in some orderly form, I'll add a link, so that we we'll have something of both the dilemna and the gospel-solution of  "Close Family Life".

We all love the thought of family.

•           home, fireplace, welcome, rest—

•           the freedom to be yourself, to plop down in front of the TV or raid the fridge.

•           It’s the place where we’re known, where we’re not ashamed to bring our dirty    clothes.

Yes, we love the thought of being in relationships…But in reality, relationships are hard. And although we love the thought of family (at least from the outside), the daily grind of family is something entirely different.

Here’s the reality:

• being in long-term relationships means that you’re going to be sinned against, even by people who really do love you. And it’s not going to happen just once!
• It also means that you’ll sin against people you love…over and over again…Self-recrimination, guilt and despair hammer away at your hope for that you’ll ever be the kind of family man or woman, the kind of parent or child, you had hoped to be.
• Spouses will disappoint. Children fail to “make us proud.”

Relationships are hard…No, they’re not just hard, they’re broken.

• Just how do we keep on loving when we are flawed and our loved ones are flawed too?
• Where does the strength to forgive (again!) come from?  And the strength to ask for forgiveness?
• What does it mean to live transparently, humbly and yet hopefully before someone who knows you all too well, someone you have hurt…someone who has hurt you?

Simply put, grace teaches us to love.

• The grace that has been given to us in the gospel trains us to love sinners—nearby sinners, sinners you sleep with, sinners who see you at your worst, sinners you see at their worst.
• In the gospel we’re given a grace that humbles our hearts and enables us to wash dirty feet, for the gospel teaches us that our Saviour loved sinners and humbly washed their feet when he was on his way to die for them.
•  Nothing will transform our hearts and turn us from demandingness and despair to gentleness and generosity like the gospel.

None of us need more rules about how to be better family men or women. You’ve already seen that list, haven’t you?  We all know we’re to love one another.

The question is not “Should we love?” the question is “how do we do that?” and the answer always is, “Because Jesus has done it for us.”

To be continued....

Who am I?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “Who Am I” just one month before he was executed. This is an English translation of the famous text:

Who am I? They often tell me, I step out from my cell calm and cheerful and poised, like a squire from his manor.

Who am I? They often tell me I speak with my guards, freely, friendly and clear, as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me I bear days of calamity serenely, smiling and proud, like accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me? Or am I only what I know of myself?

Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird, struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled, starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness, shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult, tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,helplessly fearing for friends so far away, too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work, weary and ready to take my leave of it all?

Who am I? This one or the other?

Am I this one today and tomorrow another?Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite and in my own eyes a pitiful, whimpering weakling?

Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!

 

Lavished, Redemptive Love!

Jesus loves me, this I know….. 

The autumn colours are on fire in Scotland and walking in the woods is a pure gold-experience.

When I saw this  (necessary) demolished tree my thoughts flew (is this a Puritan-expression?) to Jesus who has authority to lay down His life and take up His life again.

At our Time Out bible discussions on Tuesday mornings at Edinburgh Baptist Chapel, the Spirit has shown us in the Word, time and again, that Jesus loved us and laid down His life for us, and…….that we are to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  No longer messing around with mere empty words, but with open hearts and hands meeting known needs with  resources, with genuine love and compassion.  We love. because He first loved us with lavished love in Jesus.  We love, because He loves and we are – by grace and faith – born of God.  Like Father, like children.

This picture is infinitely less than a shadow of the deep, deep, deep love of the Father.  The Father who gave His Son, the Father who welcomes the repentant ones who run to Him by faith –accepts each one with exuberant welcomes, forgiveness and celebrations, because His only Son loved me and give Himself for me.

Overwhelming and motivating.