1 Timothy 1:19 (NLT) Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.

One of the things that we have as human beings, whether we have a relationship with God or not, is our conscience. Our conscience is that inner sense of right and wrong. When you violate it by doing something that your conscience tells you is wrong, what follows is feelings of guilt. God created us with a conscience so that we would stay on the right path in life and stay away from doing things that have bad consequences for ourselves and for others. In order to do something wrong, we actually have to violate our conscience. If we continually violate our conscience, it ultimately will be damaged and will no longer function as it was designed to function, leaving you in a state where you no longer distinguish between right and wrong.

Before anyone receives Christ as Lord and Savior of their lives, their conscience is intact and in working order (Romans 2:14-15). Their conscience will try to stop them from wrongdoing, but the problem is that they have no strength or power to resist the temptation to do wrong. That's because we all have a sinful nature. That sinful nature is in control and it leaves us with the propensity to do wrong things, even though we know that they are wrong and will probably lead to bad consequences. But when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior and He comes to live inside of us, that power and control is broken. Now instead of sin controlling us, we have a new nature controlling us. That nature is the nature of God (2 Peter 1:4). With the nature of God controlling us, we have the power to resist sin and obey our God-given conscience. So why exactly did the Apostle Paul have to write this warning that we find in the verse above? It's because in order to continue on the road to living without violating our conscience, we have to stay connected to Jesus at all times.

As human beings, we tend to get complacent with things as times goes by. Many people start out with a real passion for their new-found relationship with Jesus but after a while, the busyness and the cares of life begin to cause them to take their focus and thoughts away from God. This begins a slow but steady decline until you are not connected at all. You don't pray like you used to, you hardly pick up your Bible and you begin to skip out of church on Sundays, finding “better” things to do. In that state, you can very well violate your conscience because it is never a matter of willpower that keeps you doing the right things, but a matter of God's power keeping you from sin. That's why Paul's admonishment is to "cling to Christ." When you are clinging to something, you are holding on for dear life, and that's exactly how we must hold on to Jesus so that nothing will separate us. If we let go of Him, we will eventually shipwreck our faith, as Paul puts it. Let's do what this verse says for our own good and for the good of those around us and keep our consciences clear by holding on to Jesus for dear life. It is then that we will live without any regrets and with blessings as the consequence.

Pastor Joey Vazquez