There’s a fundamental shift that is happening today.  It used to be that when you did something wrong, your conscience guided you.  Google defines our conscience as, “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.”  The Bible talks of when a conscience is seared our ability to rightly discern what is good and bad, right or wrong, moral and immoral are compromised.  The effects of this happening are catastrophic both for individuals and our culture at large.  In a time where many don’t want to call any behavior right or wrong,  this can only lead to chaos.

God gave us His Word, the Bible, to be the guide for every aspect of life and culture.  It is Truth.  Jesus said that He was the way, the truth, and the life and that no man comes to the Father except through Him.  The reason mankind can’t have access to the Father God except through Jesus is because of sin.  It is sin that separates us from a Holy God.  This is one thing that sets Christianity apart from other religions–what do you do with a sinful heart?

Jesus came to the earth to pay the penalty for the sins of the world.  This is a mind boggling truth that because of the love that God has for us–while we were dead in our sins–Jesus made atonement–a way for mankind to be reconciled to our Father.  Jesus, out of LOVE FOR US came to earth, knowing He was going to die in one of the most excruciating ways, being publicly crucified.  Yet He came.  This is serious.

When people say that nothing is sinful or wrong, then what they are really saying is that Jesus died for nothing.  In the gospel of John it says, “In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God and the Word was GOD“.  Later on it says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.  This is talking about Jesus!  People often say, “Well, I just don’t really want to believe different parts of the Bible…or I believe that God is just about love… I don’t want to judge…”  This is something that I hear all the time, but it is critical that we have understanding.  When people make comments like that, what is REALLY happening is that they are tossing Jesus aside when they toss different parts of the Bible aside when it says something that makes them feel bad or uncomfortable.  God gave us the Word as a two-edged sword that is to cut through us to divide between soul and spirit, joint and marrow, to judge between what is right and wrong, good and evil.

He put our conscience on the inside of us.  There are things that are shameful and SHOULD cause us to feel ashamed.  Not to walk around full of shame that cripples and destroys us, but when we think or do something that is shameful and our conscience convicts us, then we are to call out to God and confess those things and ask Him for forgiveness.   THIS IS WHAT JESUS PROVIDED FOR US BY BEING CRUCIFIED.  Then we are supernaturally cleansed, and we repent and turn from those things and walk free from that which would bring shame and destruction to our lives.  This is the hope that Jesus brings to us.

He knows us because He created us, and He came to restore us to be the people that He destined us to be.  It’s the Word that convicts.  When we put the Word in us, it begins to change our thinking to be more like the way God thinks.  Then when our thinking changes, the Word begins to change our desires and our actions.   This is how we are transformed and are then able to be the people that God has called us to be in our time in history.  It really does matter how we live.