Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide- Acts 24:16

"Always let your conscience be your guide."

You can probably actually hear the voice of Jimminy Cricket saying that to Pinocchio. It may be one of the most recognizable lines from any movie...although we are so far removed from the movie now, that I would say there are several now who would attribute the line to the Bible instead of to the cricket!

And for the most part...in ideal circumstances, it is a reasonable piece of advice to live by. After all, God created our consciences for a reason. They are designed to call us to higher moral ground. Paul even speaks in Romans 2 about the conscience that God put in everyone in the world to guide them even when they were not specifically given the Law (Romans 2:11-16). Having said that, of course, we also recognize that consciences can be seared beyond the point of working any more (1 Timothy 4:2). Therefore we need a higher authority, and the only real higher authority is God.

So how do we use the conscience that God has given us while not relying on it solely? I love the way Paul words it here in Acts 24 when he is on trial. Notice the verse starts with "In view of this..." So we really need to back up a few verse to find out what is in view that motivates him to keep a blameless conscience.

¹² My accusers did not find me arguing with anyone at the temple, or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or anywhere else in the city. ¹³ And they cannot prove to you the charges they are now making against me. ¹⁴ However, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, ¹⁵ and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.                        - Acts 24:12-15

 Notice that there are three things- all bound together- that guide every decision that he makes.

1. He worships God.
2. He believes everything in accordance with the Law and Prophets
3. He has the hope of the resurrection

 It is physically impossible to really strive to worship God in the assembly and in life and not take care to guard your conscience against offending sin. When you are focused on God's beauty, the feeling of filth and guilt that a healthy conscience inflicts because of the violation not so much of the law of God as much as a violation of the love of God is simply not acceptable to you anymore!

When you really believe that the Bible is God's inspired message for us...that it helps us to understand Who God is, how we can know Him, and what kind of life he wants for us, then the message of the Bible is what guides our consciences. We live by faith!

And when we are living by faith in Jesus and His word, then we are overwhelmingly living by the hope of the resurrection! That one day I won't even need a conscience as a warning system for when I have stepped outside God's plans because I will be perfected as I am surrounded by the very presence of God Himself!

May we strive to live by those three tenets today as well. Worship, and faith, and hope. And may those give us the motivation to live before both God and the people around us in such a way that we can also have a blameless conscience.

An Epitaph Worth Raising the Dead- Acts 9:36-39

Original Picture by Flickr user Cheryl

I'm guessing you're wondering why I used a picture of crochet hooks and a ball of yarn. If you knew my Mema, then you wouldn't wonder. Mema's favorite activity in the world toward the end of her life was sitting in a chair or lying in her bed and working her crochet. She made untold numbers of dish rags and coasters. Most of those were either given away to people she loved or given to someone else to sell for some charity or some other purpose. She never made a dime off of thousands of hours of labor and probably millions of feet of yarn as far as I know. She just enjoyed making them and giving them away. Every time we saw her toward the end of her life, she would tell us to pick another out and would ask if we knew of anyone else who needed one. After her stroke when it became obvious that she would die soon, she began talking in her hospital bed about all of her unfinished crochet projects that she was working on. All the while, her fingers were working as if she were still holding the hooks. I thought, based on the way she was acting and talking, that the projects she was describing were simply products of her imagination that she was cycling through in her last moments. It wasn't until later that I found out the colors she kept talking about and who they were for were actually at the house tucked in her closet.

Crocheting was not all she did to help people. At her funeral, we got to see a lady that we haven't seen for years. She was Mema's constant companion for I have no idea how long. I don't think it was because Mema particularly enjoyed her company, though. It was because the lady needed a friend and a safe place to stay during the day. So most days she was with Mema for most of the day. We got to visit with the preacher of the tiny congregation where she lived. He knew her better than we did because from the first Sunday he started driving to preach at the Big Sandy Church of Christ, he started staying at her house and taking naps in her guest room between services. She had a library of who knows how many books that she set up in her house so others could check books out before the town got a real library. We never stayed at her house during the summer that she didn't get at least 2-3 visitors during the day. Most of them were lonely people who were looking for someone to listen to them. So they stayed at her house all day every day. I couldn't believe it when I found out that Mema had started writing letters to people on our church sick list that she had seen in our bulletin. (Mema had never even been to the town I live in much less met any of the people in the bulletin. But she always insisted on reading the bulletins of any congregation where her family attended.) I wonder how many others she wrote letters to when there was no other way for her to serve them.

Now don't get the wrong impression. Mema had her rough edges! We all found at shortly after she moved in with my parents how stubborn she could be and how blunt she could be! She could drive you insane with some of her antics and semi-manipulative tricks! But in the end, there is nothing in the world that she wouldn't do for anyone. If she had the power to help, she would. Guess which things we remember about her now.

What will people remember about you when you are gone? Tabitha...and Mema, whatever their faults, served in such a way that when they died, people wept. And those they had served had tangible evidence that they could hold up and show to others to prove the service that had been performed. I wonder what would be held up by people if I died today?

Will we be known as people who are "always doing good and helping the poor?" I can't think of a better epitaph. Tabitha's friends said that about her and it moved Peter to raise her from the dead. But the truth is that Tabitha died again later. How glorious to think that both she and Mema will one day again be raised from the dead because they were both in Christ! And when that second resurrection happens, how glorious to hear the voice of God echoing the voice of those friends!

That's what I want at the end of my life. What about you? Of course the key is living now so the epitaph at death is already written. What will your epitaph be?