Let Christ form your conscience.
One of the curious aspects of being human is our conscience. We each go about our business each day making decisions and comments. We know who we are, what we say and do and why. And there is this second aspect of us inside our heads that constantly evaluates our activities. It’s yours, your conscience is part of you, maybe the best part of you, but it is distinct.
When there is discrepancy between our words and actions and our conscience, it gnaws at us. We cannot shut that other voice up, we cannot disregard it. It is us. We may feel guilt, regret. When we’ve said or done something against our own conscience and hurts someone else, we may appeal and say, “That wasn’t the real me,” and it does have some truth in it.
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Yes, Jesus is the One.
John’s disciples asked Jesus, “Are you the One?”
Some years ago a woman I knew rinsed a glass and as she was putting it into the dishwasher, she dropped it and reflexively tried to catch it and did – just as it broke. She wound up with a nasty cut on her hand that required a trip to the ER and some stitches.
Her hand initially appeared to heal, but it didn’t heal down deep. She developed an infection that became so bad it threatened her life and required three surgeries. Eventually they found the tiny shard of glass that threatened her life. It had carried a particular bacterium that most of us have on the surface of our skin deep into her hand where it caused serious danger.
It’s helpful to think of sin that way – like an infection.
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Stay on target!
Have you ever run into a self-styled prophet? I have a few times, people who claimed God has given them special visions of the future, special knowledge that they wish to impart to people. They tend to make predictions, much like a palm reader or psychic.
True prophets are not fortune tellers or seers into the future. They have a gift in which God gives them a vision or a word to bear witness to the unfolding of God’s truth in the midst of the flow of events and history, to know and to bear witness to that truth in their own time. Because it’s God’s truth, what they have to say applies in the moment and it also becomes an enduring word for all times.
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