Colossians 3:5 (KJV)
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry
Daniele and her dad had a strain in their relationship. Her father had warned her several times not to take his car out without his permission. She took it out one day without permission and it ran out of gas while she was driving it. She refueled it, but the engine started malfunctioning after that. She didn’t tell her dad what happened, but she started acting really weird around him and couldn’t even look him in the face anymore because of her guilt. He had to spend a lot of money on fixing the car. When she was tired of the strain in their relationship caused by her guilty conscience, she decided to come out clean and confess what she had done. She didn’t know that her dad already knew and had already forgiven her. He was only waiting for her to come out clean.
We saw yesterday that a bad conscience hinders faith from entering the heart of anybody. That is why before faith towards God is mentioned among the principles of the doctrine of Christ (in Hebrews 6:1-2), repentance from dead works is mentioned. When a person hears the Gospel and believes it, the first response is repentance from dead (sinful) works, usually followed by water baptism-the baptism of repentance (Acts 2:38). This takes away the guilty conscience (see 1 Pet 3:21), and then faith producing salvation (practical deliverance from sins and the powers of Satan) can now enter the heart of the believer. Notice that in 1Pet 3:21, the baptism of repentance is directly linked to the good conscience of the believer towards God.
Go into today remembering that the most potent way to deal with lingering guilty conscience is to come out clean before the Lord (1 John 1:9) or before a member of His body who represents Him (James 5:16, Matt 18:15-18, John 20:23).
-Pastor SD Abraham
Yearly Bible Reading: II John (In Devotional Audio)
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Source: Devotionals