DO YOU HAVE A CONSCIENCE?

“Do You Have a Conscience?”

Reading: 1 John 1:9

It must have been a blistering sermon. In fact, to this day I don’t remember the topic or the text. I do remember Jody coming by me in the receiving line and saying, “Do they teach you guys in seminary how to make people feel guilty?”

“Yup,” I quipped. “Guilt 101!”

As she headed past she responded over her shoulder, “You must have gotten an A.”

To this day I don’t know whether that was a complaint or a compliment. Whatever it meant, it told me, “The woman has a conscience.”

People do not like being made to feel guilty. Heck, I understand that. I don’t like feeling guilty. It is one of life’s more unpleasant experiences. But it also may be one of life’s more important experiences.

Rebecca Manley Pippert says “Human beings have an infinite capacity to rationalize or to deny.” It is perhaps because we believe the lie that human beings are basically good. More likely it is because we know we’re not. We just don’t want anyone else to know it.

Yet living daily in the presence of sin, we come subtly under its influence. Undealt with over the long haul, it begins to change us. Like a virus that makes a subtle connection with your computer, it alters things and changes it so that it does not function properly. It corrupts the original design. It may even introduce new and even more unwelcome elements into our lives.

Our conscience is a gift from God. It is that spark of God’s image that the Holy Spirit breathes on to ignite a fire of holiness within us. It is God’s tool to help us remember that originally we were created in His image and intended to reflect His goodness and unconditional love.

I love this quote from one of this nation’s Founders and Framers.

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
--George Washington

That’s where guilt comes in. It pricks our conscience when we step across the line. Sometimes it hits us between the eyes to remind us that there is a line. Christians believe that acknowledgement of our guilt is the first step towards transformation into new people, better people, God’s people.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – I John 1.9

A pastor once asked his flock, “What must we do to receive the forgiveness of sin?” After a bit of silence a little boy responded, “First, you gotta sin.”

Frankly, we have no problem meeting that requirement. Our conscience remembers that by allowing us to feel guilty. People of no or little conscience steal pension funds, abuse children, pollute the environment wantonly, manipulate elections, ignore the poor and needy.

Thank God we have a conscience and thank God it reminds us to feel guilty. For more often than we’d like to think – we are guilty.

(c) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn

DOUBT AND FAITH

 ¹ To you I call, O LORD my Rock;
       do not turn a deaf ear to me.
       For if you remain silent,
       I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.  ² Hear my cry for mercy
       as I call to you for help,
       as I lift up my hands
       toward your Most Holy Place.- Psalm 28:1-2

 Have you ever had a moment of doubt? I'm not speaking of sudden and utter disbelief about something you had previously affirmed. I'm speaking of that wave of uncertainty or that gnawing thought that robs you of your peace and makes you want to pause and get your bearings.

Some Christians believe that any expression of doubt, any entertained question about their foundations for believing will cut them off from God.  I always thought that was a little extreme.  Yes, they can pull out a text or two that standing all by itself on the platform of examination affirms their need for blind faith. But against the whole backdrop of scripture and what scripture affirms about the nature and intentions of God, such a position crumbles.

I appreciate this quote from John Ortberg:

“Theologian Lesslie Newbigin writes that we live in an age that favors doubt over faith. We often speak of “blind faith” and “honest doubt.” Both faith and doubt can be honest or blind, but we rarely speak of “honest faith” or “blind doubt.” Both faith and doubt are needed, yet it is faith that is more fundamental…I must believe something before I can doubt anything. Doubt is to belief what darkness is to light, what sickness is to health. It is an absence. Sickness may be the absence of health, but health is more than the absence of sickness. So it is with doubt and faith. Doubt is a good servant but a poor master.”
–John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

Doubt enters into the mind of every person - both seeker and true believer.  Doubt may disturb those around us who want to remain undisturbed; but moments of doubt--honest doubt--often drive us back to the foundations of what we believe.  It reminds us that we do not and will not have answers to every question of our mind but we cannot stop living while we sort it all out.

A good friend of mine, Doug Nolt, used to have a sign on his door during his days as a campus minister:

I do not know all the answers

but I know the One who does.

For ultimately our faith is not rooted and grounded in our intellectual abilities or our prowess at securing unassailable answers.  Our faith is rooted and grounded in a person.

And that person is Jesus Christ.

PS - I love this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "Never doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light."

(C) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn