Should You Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide?

What do you think of when you think of the word conscience? Maybe an angel on one shoulder and devil on the other? Maybe Jiminy Cricket's song from Pinocchio? Cue the music...

"Take the straight and narrow path

And if you start to slide,

Give a little whistle!

Give a little whistle!

And always let your conscience be your guide."

Should you always let your conscience be your guide? Before we answer that, we first need to answer the question about, What even is the conscience?

The conscience is something you deal with every day. It's our moral compass. It's kind of like an invisible judge in our hearts that either accuses us when we do wrong or approves us when we do what is right. Jiminy Cricket calls it "that still small voice that people won't listen to. That's just the trouble with the world today."

The Apostle Paul referenced the conscience 21 times in his 13 New Testament letters. I've always been struck by how much the Apostle Paul talks about the conscience and how little we talk about the conscience today. He talked about how it was important for him to maintain a blameless conscience before God and men (Acts 23:1; 24:16). In 1 Timothy 1:5, he went so far as to include the formation of a good conscience as one of his main ministry goals:

“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5

So the conscience is like a moral compass, and it is extremely important, but should we always let our conscience be our guide?

Well, it depends on if your conscience is in good working order or not. 1 Timothy 1:5 implies that it's possible for a conscience to not be good. The word Paul uses for "good" (agathos) could be translated, "morally good, in order, usable." Through his ministry, Paul was seeking to restore a good conscience in God's people--one that would consistently and accurately point them to what is right and wrong according to God's standards. In other words, some people do not have a good conscience or a conscience that is consistent in what is right or wrong. In order for a conscience to be "good" it must be shaped and guided by truth.

Scripture lays out two primary ways in which the conscience can be wrong. The first is that the conscience can be seared. 1 Timothy 4:1-2 says,

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.”

Some translations say, "seared as with a branding iron," because that is what is being implied. If you've ever been to a calf branding, you know what seared, or cauterized, skin is like. It's not pleasant! The hide that is branded won't grow hair anymore and won't have feeling. It is scarred for life, becoming unusable and insensitive.

In the same way, a person whose conscience is seared won't be sensitive to right and wrong or may have right and wrong confused due to the false teaching they've embraced. In so doing, they are now supporting Satan's team, or brand. They belong to Satan or have a stronghold in their mind held by Satan. Gordon Fee writes,

"It is equally possible that he [Paul] intends to suggest that their consciences carry Satan's brand."[1]

A sobering reality is that a person can believe enough false teaching or continually reject the promptings of their conscience to the point that they no longer have a dependable moral compass. Thus, they can start to call evil, good and good, evil (Isaiah 5:20), such as we see with things like abortion or homosexuality today. These things are shameful and wrong, and yet our culture is now celebrating them and taking pride in them. Titus 1:15 would describe this as a defiled or unclean conscience (Titus 1:15).

Years ago, I heard a story on a podcast about a teenage girl who had gotten pregnant while at a Christian summer camp. Overwhelmed with guilt and shame, she sought counseling and was counseled to go out and have similar encounters until the guilt went away. She was essentially "counseled" to sear her conscience.

That is an extreme example. However, we must be careful not to do the same. By poor choices and repetition, things that were once sinful to us like lusting, lying, cheating, or stealing can become a regular part of our lives--even celebrated. We can lose the sensitivity to what is sinful and how it is affecting us, as well as others.

The second way that the conscience can be wrong is by being overactive. The conscience can condemn us unnecessarily. In other words, it will tell us something is wrong even if it isn't.

Some great examples from the New Testament on this are in relation to the Jewish believers in Christ. Having grown up under the Old Covenant Law of Moses and centuries of long-held tradition, they often struggled with the newfound freedom that they had in Christ under the New Covenant. Romans 14:1 describes the situation going on between Jews and Gentiles in the churches at Rome.

"Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only.

[Pause! This verse is a great one for your vegan friends (he who is weak eats vegetables only)! It's not about vegans though... so let's always stick to the context.]

The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand."

In this passage, the "weak in faith" is primarily the Jew who still feels obligated to keep some OT Law stipulations like the dietary laws. He is still hung up on eating kosher. No seafood. No pork. No meat sacrificed to idols. Back then, when you went and bought meat at a local market, there was a very likely chance that that meat was sacrificed to an idol first. And so sometimes Jews had their own butchers. But some were so sensitive and uncertain as to where a butcher’s meat came from, they wouldn’t eat any at all! They would become vegetarians. Their conscience is overly sensitive and would be considered "weak in faith." They didn’t understand they were free to eat whatever they wanted now in the New Covenant.

A sensitive conscience is a good thing, but it can sometimes lead a person to restrict his or her freedom unnecessarily. If you remember, God worked carefully with Peter to shape his conscience in relation to what could or could not be eaten (Acts 10:1-11:18). Peter's story in Acts and the situation in Romans demonstrates that our conscience can be shaped and at times needs to be corrected and guided by the Word of God and the gospel.

So in response to the question, Should we always let our conscience be our guide? The basic answer is yes but it does come with a caveat: Yes, we should let our conscience be our guide, provided that our conscience is being guided by the truth of the Word of God.

Failing to respond to what we know is right and wrong can eventually sear our conscience or take us down a dark alley of guilt. John Stott wrote that a psychiatrist once told him he could empty the mental hospitals in Great Britain if he could convince people they were forgiven.

If you feel overwhelmed by the guilt of being a sinner or for something specific you've done, cry out to Jesus! Only Jesus can set us free from the guilt of sin that we have before God. Only in Christ is there no condemnation (Rom. 8:1).

King David was a man who knew guilt all too well. After his incident with Bathsheba, guilt riddled his conscience, affecting him wholistically--spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. He said that he felt like his body was wasting away and that the hand of the Lord was heavy on Him. But once he repented and confessed his sin to the Lord, God forgave him and restored him.

"How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin." Psalm 32:1-5

Forgiveness and freedom were found when David confessed his sins and God forgave him.

1 John 1:9 is a similar New Testament promise about God's forgiveness for those who confess their sin. It promises,

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

If you feel the need to confess your sin today, do just that. Don't try to hide it or blame someone else for it or play the victim card. Just be honest with God and confess it. Repent of it. Then rest in His promise of forgiveness.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I pray it is a blessing to you.

In Christ with you,

Pastor Justin

[1] Gordon D. Fee, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus: Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984, 1988), 98-99.