A Conscience Trained to Guide Us

I hate going to the dentist. I hate the chemical smell when I walk in the door. I hate sitting in the chair, waiting for the dentist like a prisoner on death row.

Most of all, I hate the pain. The dental assistant usually gives me a shot of Novocain (a medicine used to numb pain during dental work) before the drilling begins.

Even though I hate the shot, I cannot imagine enduring the dentist’s drill without it.

The Purpose of Pain

Except for those who are mentally unstable, no one enjoys pain. We do everything we can to avoid physical, emotional, and spiritual discomfort.

Yet, some pain is actually good for us. Physical pain warns us of serious internal problems that need a doctor’s attention.

Similarly, a pained conscience (our inner sense of right and wrong) can help us choose good behaviors over bad ones.

God gave us a conscience as a decision-making aid:

• When we do what is right, our conscience approves.
• When we sin, our conscience is pricked, making us feel uneasy.
• This discomfort motivates us to make things right.

A bothered conscience has stolen many hours of sleep. It will relentlessly torture us when we violate our core beliefs. While unpleasant, this is actually a healthy response.

Training the Conscience

We should not aim to live with a troubled conscience. Instead, we should live in a way that keeps our conscience quiet. When we do what we know is right, our inner voice has no reason to argue.

However, our conscience cannot be our only guide. Your conscience is only as good as the information training it.

The Bible is our ultimate standard of right and wrong. As we study its precepts (rules on how to behave), principles, and the example of Jesus, we train our conscience to judge correctly.

Often, a trained conscience will bring specific Scriptures to mind when we start to go astray, or comfort us with God’s truth when we do what is right.

The Danger of Ignoring the Alarms

The conscience does not force us to obey. We can easily ignore its warnings, rendering it completely useless.

When I lived in Florida, I often saw people ignore hurricane warnings when a storm was just off the coast. Many people lose their lives in natural disasters simply because they ignore the alarms.

The same thing happens spiritually. If you repeatedly ignore your conscience, it will eventually stop warning you.

Paul warned of this danger in 1 Timothy 4:2. He described false teachers whose consciences had been “seared with a hot iron.”

If you burn your skin with a hot iron, the nerves in that area die. You can stick pins in it, but you won’t feel a thing. Those who persist in sin will eventually deaden their conscience until they feel no guilt at all.

Others deaden their conscience through simple ignorance. In Ephesians 4:17-19, Paul warns that those who choose to ignore God’s will lose all feeling. They slip into lewd (impure or indecent) behavior because they are no longer motivated by godly living or the common sense of avoiding a self-destructive life.