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| by Kim Davis Arcade Baptist Church Sacramento, CA
I used to have an evil conscience. It told me, "You haven't worked hard enough; you aren't nice enough, you aren't praying enough or reading the Bible enough. This hard thing that just happened in your life is punishment, because your Christian life isn't good enough..." My mind would worry, work and try to figure out how I could please God; how I could earn His love and acceptance. Discouragement and depression were constant companions of mine, and I was so tired. I didn't feel worthy of love, and was afraid to try to love others. A small group at my church studied the Becoming What God Intended workbook by David Eckman, PhD. Chapter four, entitled Acceptance and The Son introduced me to truth that wasn't properly understood in my mind or heart. I was beginning to enjoy the healthy picture that I was adopted into the perfect family and that I was unconditionally loved. However, this chapter showed me that salvation is a person, Jesus, and not a religious system that Jesus’ death was a part of. Jesus set me free from past, present and future sin and guilt. From the reading for day four of chapter four, I came face to face with a serious sin in my life: I had an evil conscience. "If you have such an evil conscience, you don't need Satan, because you are carrying a substitute for him around inside yourself, and the substitute will point out your defects and attack you." The Holy Spirit used this truth to teach me what an evil conscience was, and to convict me that this was in fact a sin in my life; that this conscience was a "Christ plus" conscience. Anything that I tried to add to the finished work of Jesus Christ was sin and rebellion. The following statement from the book caused me to really pause and think: "Since I am accepted before God the Father by the work of Jesus Christ, I can lay here forever. I can say nothing and do nothing and I'm still accepted." I realized that this was truth, because the Spirit began to bring all kinds of Bible verses to my mind that indeed supported this statement (i.e., "It was for freedom Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." "For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, 'In repentance and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and trust is your strength.") I was in bondage to an evil conscience that had been trained into me for years in my family of origin. Then, Dr. Eckman went on to share a word picture that will stay with me forever. He wrote, "Here is the blood of Jesus Christ in God's presence in heaven and I walk up to that blood with the goat's blood of my good works and I pour the goat's blood into the blood of Jesus Christ and then say, 'At last my conscience is satisfied.'" I wept and repented at this picture and the gravity of my sin and soon after praised God and laughed for sheer joy at the huge weight that had been lifted from me. I couldn't sit still, so I went for a prayer walk. I couldn't believe the energy that I had! I followed Dr. Eckman's advice: I took an imaginary walk inside my heart and took a branch of hyssop and dipped it in the blood of Jesus. I sprinkled that blood on the black evil conscience and in my mind's eye, and watched it shrink away into nothing. In subsequent days, when I went before the Lord to pray, as soon as I began to head toward the "wallow in guilt" phase, I would picture what the blood of Jesus had done to my evil conscience and I would instead smile and praise Jesus for His precious blood. Jesus' blood has set me free from the incredible bondage of an evil conscience and I continue to marvel at the way God has worked in me and grown me since. Probably the most gratifying of all is the joy
of freedom that energizes me to want to obey God and love my
neighbor. I love to share these truths and wonderful word
pictures with fellow Christians who struggle with an evil
conscience. After Jesus removed the barrier of an evil
conscience in my life, I have felt free to receive His love and
mercy as never before. I have experienced the wonderful
joy of His love flowing through me and into the lives of others. Read Becoming What God
Intended for yourself! Now available on-line!
Get the full impact from this teaching for your
life through our powerful and unique eLearning online Bible study course
Spiritual Life Development!
Read more about the Setting the Heart Free seminar! Visit our
Testimonies home page for more stories! |
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