Daily Meditation

Listening to Your Conscience

Ligonier Ministries

“My conscience is held captive by the Word of God. And to act against conscience is neither right nor safe.”

These words formed a crucial part of Martin Luther’s fateful response to authorities of church and state when he was ordered to recant of his teachings at the Diet of Worms in 1521. He was pleading that his intention was to be neither rebellious nor obstreperous, but to be faithful to Scripture. What Luther was declaring was not so much that he would not recant but that he could not recant.

Luther used the metaphor of the prisoner. He was as a man in chains, incarcerated, with no option of liberty by which he was able to do what the authorities commanded. He was not physically restrained. The irons that gripped him were of a moral sort. It was his conscience that had been captured by the Holy Ghost.

The only option by which he could please men was the option to act against his conscience. To act for men was to act against God. Though the stakes were high, the decision was actually a “no brainer.” Scripture declares that whatever is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23).

Coram Deo

Reflect on this statement: “To act for men is to act against God.”

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 10:22
Hebrews 9:14
1 Timothy 1:18–19

Daily Meditation

Avoiding a Hardened Conscience

Ligonier Ministries

We are warned not to allow ourselves to become hardened, because if we look at the whole concept of hardening in its biblical perspective, we see that something happens to us through repeated sins. Our consciences become seared. The more we commit a particular sin, the less remorse we feel from it. Our hearts are recalcitrant through repeated disobedience.

When God hardens the heart, all He does is step away and stop striving with us. For example, the first time I commit a particular sin, my conscience bothers me. In His grace, God is convicting me of that evil. God is intruding into my life, trying to persuade me to stop this wickedness. If He wants to harden me, all He has to do is to stop rebuking me, stop nudging me, and just give me enough rope to hang myself.

We see in Scripture that when God hardens hearts, He does not force people to sin; rather, He gives them their freedom to exercise the evil of their own desires (James 1:13–15).

Coram Deo

Pray this prayer with the psalmist David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).

Passages for Further Study

James 1:13-15

Daily Meditation

Avoiding a Hardened Conscience

Ligonier Ministries

We are warned not to allow ourselves to become hardened, because if we look at the whole concept of hardening in its biblical perspective, we see that something happens to us through repeated sins. Our consciences become seared. The more we commit a particular sin, the less remorse we feel from it. Our hearts are recalcitrant through repeated disobedience.

When God hardens the heart, all He does is step away and stop striving with us. For example, the first time I commit a particular sin, my conscience bothers me. In His grace, God is convicting me of that evil. God is intruding into my life, trying to persuade me to stop this wickedness. If He wants to harden me, all He has to do is to stop rebuking me, stop nudging me, and just give me enough rope to hang myself.

We see in Scripture that when God hardens hearts, He does not force people to sin; rather, He gives them their freedom to exercise the evil of their own desires (James 1:13–15).

Coram Deo

Pray this prayer with the psalmist David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).

Passages for Further Study

James 1:13-15

We Hope the Movie is Worthy of Its Subject

In Faithful Service To Our Lord

We came across an amazing story in one of our prominent New Zealand current affairs blogs.  We reproduce it in full:

An Incredible Hero

August 12th, 2016 at 12:00 pm by David Farrar
Kiwiblog

Just listened to a podcast about a true hero, Desmond Doss. Desmond Doss was a conscientious objector in WWII yet won the Congressional Medal of Honour for bravery.  He was a devout Seventh-day Adventist and took the sixth Commandment literally “Thou shalt not kill” and also the fourth “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”.

He took this to mean he could not kill, or even hold a weapon, nor work on a Saturday. However he became an Army medic as even Christ healed people on the Sabbath. He could have tried to defer or stay home, but wanted to help the war effort – so long as it didn’t violate his religious beliefs.

He got many hassles for his devout beliefs and refusal to train on Saturdays or hold a weapon. One superior even tried to get him discharged on the grounds of mental illness. He refused to take this way out, saying how could he agree being a Christian is a mental illness.

He served initially in 1944 in Guam and the Philippines.

Strange Bedfellows

The Rising Voice of Conscience

The Greens have come out with an abortion policy they want to float before the electorate. This from Stuff:

The Greens have ratified a policy on abortion, which would get rid of a process a certified consultant says is "perfectly workable".  Abortion is a crime under the Crimes Act, and is legal only if two consultants agree that the pregnancy would seriously harm the woman's physical or mental health, or that there is a substantial risk the child would be born seriously disabled.  The Greens want abortion removed from the crime statutes, saying it would reduce stigma and judgment surrounding the procedure. This would mean a woman seeking one would not need external approval.

Just what this policy platform has to do with environmental concerns is not immediately obvious--unless the sub-text is that Greens are typically anti-human, seeing mankind as the biggest threat to the environment on the planet.  More abortions means less human beings: ergo, it's good for the environment.

Thankfully, however, notwithstanding the Greens misanthropy,  the abortion tally in New Zealand is dropping.

Depravity of Another Kind

Gnawing Doubts 

Here is a truly horrific crime, as reported in Stuff:

A "depraved" paedophile has been sent to prison for sexual offending against his infant son. A 27-year-old South Canterbury man was sentenced in the Oamaru District Court this afternoon to eight years 10 months imprisonment by Judge Joanna Maze for offending which will have a profound effect on his child.

The man sat motionless in the dock as he was sentenced on a raft of child exploitation charges, including two of sexual violation and indecent assault, and selling the use of his then 13-month-old son for sexual gratification for $500. . . .