Clearing the Conscience

Today's program contains portions from the following episodes:

"A Portrait of Personal Revival"

"A Clear Conscience"

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Dannah Gresh: Don’t you love the feeling of a cleaned out junk drawer? What if you could have that feeling about your conscience? Andrea Griffith says you can.

Andrea Griffith: Confession is the key that unlocks the door to your bondage, to your captivity. It is the key that swings that gate wide open to set you free.

Dannah: Today, we'll talk about the freedom that comes when you bring everything—your past and your present—into the light. 

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Do you remember the old animated movie Pinocchio? 

You may have seen it when you were growing up. Pinocchio was a puppet who desperately wanted to be a "real boy" . . . but he couldn't. Not without a conscience. 

Enter Jiminy Cricket—an insect with a bit of an attitude, who charmed us all in that little top hat and tailcoat. Early in the movie Jiminy Cricket's assigned the important role of being Pinocchio's conscience. Now, whether or not he was actually good at that job is very debatable, but he was supposed to help Pinocchio do the right thing. And when he didn't? When Pinocchio lied? Well, you know what happened . . . It was written all over his face!

It's humiliating to be caught in a lie. It's embarrassing to ask for forgiveness when you've wronged someone. 

Andrea Griffith knows what it’s like to clear the air and seek forgiveness for lying. Andrea’s mentored women for years. She speaks at various women events, and in fact, she spoke at a True Woman event not long ago. She wants us to understand why a clear conscience is so important. Here’s Andrea.

Andrea: Having a clear conscience is basically being able to say that there is no one alive that if I have hurt or wronged them that I have not gone back and made it right. Now my clear conscience list was a mile long. I had so many kids in my youth group that I needed to call and seek their forgiveness. I had professors in college that I had cheated on tests in their class that I needed to call and seek their forgiveness. My parents, I had talked to them about all of my past, but now I had a new view of how I had hurt them, and I had to call them and seek their forgiveness. My clear conscience list was a work in progress and honestly, it still is.

Just to keep a short sin account when God brings that person across my path that I can seek their forgiveness and say, “Man, I really blew it here. Could you forgive me?” In my family, I had to ask my daughter’s forgiveness this morning. She said something and I snapped back at her, and God’s Spirit was just all over my heart. I just had to say, “Brooke, will you please forgive me? That was so wrong.” Just keeping that short sin account, having a clear conscience before people.

Not only did I have to clear up my past, but because I was such a good liar, I would just lie all the time, so I had to clear up my present. So what I did is if I would lie or exaggerate, I would look right at the person and I would say, “I just lied to you. Will you please forgive me?” And after you humiliate yourself like that, it becomes a whole lot easier just to tell the truth. I am lying to get their approval. If I have to go back and just tell them I lied, it becomes a whole lot easier just to tell the truth in the first place.

The other thing is that I began to get very sick. I began to have some major health issues. When I was at my worst, I could only be out of bed for about five hours a day. My joints were aching. I had no strength. I had no energy. Before this time I was running two miles a day at this point

I could only be out of bed five hours a day just doing mundane tasks. My hair was falling out. I was losing weight. I was just sick. And I really didn’t understand what God was doing because I thought I was finally getting in a right relationship with Him.

How many of you in this room are gardeners? Does anybody like to garden? A few of you. I hope to one day be a gardener. But I have just not been able to grow very much on the church parking lot while I am there just for a week. But if you are gardeners, you may have heard of this term. How many of you have heard of the term sucker shoot? Anybody know what a sucker shoot is?

For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, let me try to display it up here for you. Pretend this is a plant. Okay? And the plant is growing up and these are the little branches, and it is growing up and it is all healthy just like it is. Well, all of a sudden you get this huge branch coming out of your plant, and this huge branch is called a sucker shoot. Now those gardeners out there, what do you do with a sucker shoot? You have to cut it off. When you cut off the sucker shoot, the rest of the plant can grow up and be healthy and get the nutrients it needs.

Well, I had so many sucker shoots in my life that God just said, “Andrea, I am not going to allow you to live that way anymore. I am going to cut them off. I am going to remove those sucker shoots of pride in your life.” The only talent I had ever had was being able to sing. Now I would get up to sing and I couldn’t sing. My voice would crack; it would break; I was flat. It was horrible. And God was just taking it off. I had always wanted to be the kind of person that if you gave me something to do I was going to do it well, over the top; you would never have to think about it again. And now I could only be out of bed for five hours on any given day feeling terrible.

God was removing the sucker shoots of self-sufficiency in my life, and He was just saying, “I don’t want you to live self-sufficient anymore because if you do, nothing you do is going to amount to anything. I want you to learn to be dependent on Me.”It wasn’t a fun process at all.

And because I was so sick, my leadership decided that I needed to go home. I wasn’t an asset to the team anymore. I was just a total liability. And so they were telling me that I needed to go home. But Life Action had been my bubble. Life Action had been my safe place and home had been my place of failure, and so I was terrified to go home. But I was still meeting with the Lord morning after morning, and He gave me some verses that are so dear to my heart still even now.

In Isaiah, 54:4–5 it says: "Fear not" and I was terrified at this point to go home. He said,

Fear not for you will not be put to shame; and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth.

And that was all I could see was shame. With trying to clear up my past and my present, I wore my shame.

For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the LORD of Hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of the whole earth.

Dannah: Andrea Griffith’s not done. I want to hear the rest of her story. We’ll hear more from her a little later. But today, we are talking about the word "conscience." That’s just the word we sometimes use to describe knowing the difference between right and wrong. 

I've heard someone say that your conscience is like the radar of your heart. Think about it: if you have a guilty conscience, it’s like those green and red spots on the radar screen. Those are warning signs. It means you've got trouble, my friend. 

But when you have a clear conscience, there’s no problem, no signs of trouble.

There are some wonderful examples of this in the Bible, especially from the life of David. Grab your Bible and turn to 1 Samuel chapter 24. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is about to share what happened when David did something he shouldn’t have done.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: First Samuel 24, verse 4: “Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.” Saul was the egomaniac on the throne who was in the way of God’s promises being fulfilled that David would be on the throne. And David was tempted—and others encouraged him—-to take matters into his own hands. “Get the kingdom for yourself! At least tweak him a little bit!”

And so David arose on this one occasion when Saul and his men were sleeping, and he just cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. And here’s what’s interesting to me.

Afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe (v. 5). 

He didn’t kill Saul; he didn’t ambush Saul and his men with his army of men. He just cut off a corner of his robe, but his “heart struck him.” Some translations say, “His heart smote him” (KJV). That was David’s conscience saying, “You shouldn’t have done this!” 

Second Samuel chapter 24 gives us another illustration. It says in verse 10, “David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people.” You can go back and see why he did this; he didn’t do it for the right reasons. It wasn’t God’s will. 

And David said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done" (v. 10).

So his “heart struck him.” He numbered the people. His conscience told him, “You shouldn’t have done that! You sinned!” And so David acknowledged to the Lord, “You’re right! I have sinned greatly in what I have done!”

Now this says to me that David, who we know is a man after God’s own heart, had a tender, sensitive conscience, and he was responsive. When his conscience struck him, he was sensitive and responsive to say, “I’ve sinned!” So the question is, do you have a sensitive conscience? How sensitive is your conscience?

Or have you gone against it so many times that it no longer bothers you to sin? And that’s what will happen if you ignore your conscience time and time again and don’t respond to that prompt. Your conscience becomes desensitized. So, not only do you have a conscience (you do!), but how sensitive is it? Do you listen to it? Do you respond when God convicts you, by means of His Spirit speaking to your conscience? 

Now, there are some wonderful biblical examples of what it means to have a clear conscience. I think of Samuel, the Old Testament prophet who, at the end of his long life and ministry, spoke to the people of Israel, he gathered them together.

In 1 Samuel chapter 12 (this was before David came to the throne), Samuel said to the people, “I am old and gray” (v. 2). He was saying, “I have lived a long time; I’ve served a long time.” 

I have walked before you from my youth until this day [a lot of years!]. Here I am; testify against me before the Lord. . . . Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you (vv. 2–3). 

Here’s a man who was not afraid to stand up and say, “My conscience is clear. And if it’s not, you tell me and I’ll make it right.”

You see that same heart in the apostle Paul in the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 12, Paul says, 

The testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you [the world and the church, toward nonbelievers and believers] with godly sincerity and purity (CSB).

“We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one” (2 Cor. 7:2). Now that’s quite a statement for these guys to be able to make! They are public figures. There are a lot of ways they could have offended people, a lot of ways they could have sinned against people.

But here at the end of their lives, or in the fullness of their ministry, they say, “You tell me. Have I sinned against you? I’ll make it right.” I mean, could I say that to the people who know me best? Could you? Is your conscience clear, clean, or does it accuse you.

Maybe it’s about something that took place years ago; maybe it’s about something that seems little or insignificant. You know, it can be little things—two postage stamps—that eat your conscience alive . . . even for years! 

And so, the apostle Paul says in Acts 24:16, “I always take pains.” The NIV says there, “I strive always.” He’s saying, “This is something I work at, I’m diligent about. I’m vigilant about this. “I always take pains to have a clear conscience [two directions; vertically] toward both God and [horizontally, toward] man.”

Dannah: That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, sharing what the Bible says about having a clear conscience. 

I want to go back to one of those questions she just asked: is your conscience clear, or does it accuse you? 

There may be something tugging at your heart right now. It may even be something small that has been pulling on you for years. Friend, you need to tell someone.

Does the thought of sharing what you are thinking scare you? Yeah, it has had me shaking at times, too. Remember Andrea Griffith? Here conscience was troubling her so deeply that she was physically ill from it. She became a liability to her ministry team and had to go home. There, God led her to the solution—confession. Her she is to tell you a little bit about what set her heart free. I have a feeling that might be what you need to set yours free. Here’s Andrea.

Andrea: Well, the Bible is so clear on this word confession. I think we are so afraid of it. We are so afraid to confess. But you know what the truth is? Confession is the key that unlocks the door to your bondage. To your captivity. It is the key that swings that gate wide open to set you free.

 

Let’s look at some verses here. First of all 1 John 1:7. It says:

If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If I wanted to have fellowship with my future husband, the Bible calls this a one flesh relationship, there needed to be no secrets between us. He needed to know what he was getting himself into and what baggage I was bringing in to this one flesh relationship.

This verse is so neat because it talks about walking in the light as Jesus is in the light. What happens when we do that? We have fellowship one with another. If I am walking in the light in obedience to the Lord, then I have fellowship with you. And if I am walking in disobedience, I am not walking in the light; do you know what that hinders? It hinders our fellowship in the body with our husbands and our families and broader in the family of God.

Now does that mean that you have to stand up here and tell all the ladies in your church your past failures? No. That does not mean that. But does your husband know? Do you have an area in your life that you have never gotten victory over and you have never told anyone? Have you ever gone to a godly older woman and said help me with this, walk me through the Word, here is where I am failing? The Bible says that if we confess our faults to each other and pray for one another that we will be healed (see James 5:16). That is body life. Going to a godly older woman, going to your husband and letting him know what has gone on in your life and the deepest needs of your heart.

Now when you confess your confession, you don’t confess details, but you confess depth of sin. You don’t tell all the details of your sin, but you confess the depth of your sin. Details can get in the way and have a way of coming back and haunting us or haunting the person that we are sharing with. But the depth of our sin, so God can heal that.

There was a lady in Georgia that came to me after I shared this, and she said, “Andrea, I am on my second marriage, and my second husband thinks that it was all my first husband’s fault.” And she said “But I was the one who committed adultery. I was the one who was immoral.” She had a list, and her now husband had no idea. And she said “I am terrified to tell him because if I do, it will end our marriage.” Do you know it wasn’t her confession that would hurt the marriage, it was her sin. It was what she had already done. She went back, she confessed to her husband, and she wrote me a letter later and said, “Our marriage has never been stronger.” Do you know what she did? She believed the lie that if she kept it covered she would be okay, but if she confessed it she would be in trouble.

Look at this verse in Proverbs 28:13:

He who covers his sin shall not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes shall find . . . (NKJV) 

What? What word is it? That is a promise from the Word of God. When we confess our sin and forsake it, God dumps His mercy into our lives. And it doesn’t just have to be great big things. This is exactly what happened to me with my daughter this morning, Brooke, when I snapped at her. What did I have to do? I had to confess my sin and forsake it. And every time we do it is a promise. What does God do? He dumps His mercy into our lives. He is waiting on us to confess so that He can give us mercy into our lives. Do you believe that today? Or are you still hiding, still covering? Until we are willing to confess, we will never experience all that God wants us to experience with Him, in our own personal lives, with our families.

Dannah: When we confess our sins, we find mercy every time. Every time. 

So, don't wait. Right now, while conviction feels heavy on your heart, turn to the Lord and confess your sin—and feel His mercy. Friend, no matter what you have done, you are loved and forgiven by Christ. Ask Him to help you go to the person you have wronged so that you can live with the joy of a clear conscience.

Again, don't wait. Do it now. And know that when you take this step, you are walking toward a life of freedom and fullness and fruitfulness in Christ. Oh, just thinking about that makes me want to praise God! 

Song: “Beautiful Scandalous Night” 

Go on up to the mountain of mercy
to the crimson perpetual tide.
Kneel down on the shore
be thirsty no more,
Go under and be purified.

Follow Christ to the Holy mountain;
Sinner, sorry and wrecked by the fall.
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all.

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night; you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white,
On that beautiful scandalous night.

On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross, justified.
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours,
From our blessed Saviour's side.

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night; you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white,
On that beautiful scandalous night.

On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross, justified.
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours,
From our blessed Saviour's side.

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night; you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white,
On that beautiful scandalous night.

You carry the sin of mankind on your back,
And the sky went black
Go on up to the mountain of mercy.
Go the crimson perpetual tide.
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more,
Go under and be purified.

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night; you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white,
On that beautiful scandalous night.

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night; you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white,
On that beautiful scandalous night.
On that beautiful scandalous night.²

One of my favorite places to worship the Lord is alongside other women who have been set free by Jesus. We'll be doing just that in a few weeks at True Woman ’22, a three-day conference in Indianapolis. Keith and Kristyn Getty and Shane and Shane will be leading us in worship! I can’t wait! If you can't make it in person, I would love for you to join us online. 

You can register for True Woman ’22 by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

In James 1, verse 5 we find these words, “If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God.” I love knowing that God gives us wisdom, especially when we ask. Oh friend, I can’t wait for next week when we talk about wisdom and how to find it. Please listen to Revive Our Hearts Weekend next time.

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team for making this episode possible: Phil Krause, CJ Raymond, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, Katie Laitkep, Erin Davis, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

¹“When You Wish Upon a Star (From Pinocchio).” Cliff Edwards & Disney Studio Chorus. Disney’s Greatest, Vol. 1. Compilation ℗ 2001 Walt Disney Records.

²“Beautiful Scandalous Night.” Sixpence None the Richer & Bebo Norman. City on a Hill: The Gathering ℗ 2003 Essential Records.

 

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