Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “The wicked flee when no one is pursuing them, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” Proverbs 28:1 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “A clear conscience is a wonderful thing.”
One day I was driving down the street in a bad section of town when in the parking lot of a seedy motel I saw a young man I knew. He had descended into the depths of the drug culture, had dropped out of sight for some time, and we were all worried about him. So I stopped to talk to him.
It quickly became obvious that he was on drugs at that moment and he was very paranoid. He told me I shouldn’t be there because it wasn’t safe (that was true). He told me that there were detectives hiding in an office building across the street who were keeping the motel under constant surveillance (possibly true but probably not). And then he told me that those detectives followed him everywhere he went (almost certainly not true). In his paranoid state of mind, knowing full well that he was breaking numerous laws, he was convinced he was being constantly watched and followed.
I told him that if he wasn’t doing the things he was doing and living the life he was living, he wouldn’t have to worry about the police tailing him because they wouldn’t have any reason to. Unfortunately he didn’t get it and we both went on our separate ways.
The paranoid sense of being watched (and ultimately discovered) that that young man was feeling is a common experience for all of us when we’re in the wrong and we know it. God gave us a conscience for a reason. Further, in the lives of Christians, it’s the job of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and to make us feel guilty about it. The idea is to make us so miserable that no sane person would want to continue living that way.
In Romans 13:3 the Apostle Paul asks a rhetorical question, “Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you.” (NIV) This was Solomon’s point in Proverbs 28:1. It’s also what Bible commentator John MacArthur meant when he wrote, “A guilty conscience imagines accusers everywhere, while a clear conscience has boldness to face everyone.”
A clear conscience is a wonderful thing but a guilty conscience leaves you worried and paranoid. So the answer is simple, just live in such a way that you don’t have anything to feel guilty about.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 