In my reading today in My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote about the need to keep a clear conscience, based on Acts 24:16, “… strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men.” He stated, “Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do.” (May 13) He calls it, “the eye of the soul.” He challenges the reader to keep a conscience that is so sensitive to the Spirit’s nudgings that one will never offend God or men, as Luke says in Acts 24. Wow, that is a tall order. I regularly offend those closest to me (not intentionally), so living in a way that doesn’t offend God or men is difficult to imagine.

My heart’s longing is not to “grieve the Holy Spirit,” (Eph. 4:30) but rather to obey the gentle whisper of the Spirit. Chambers wrote, “There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks.” Yet I find it is all too easy to go along with popular culture, to rationalize my actions, to accept the profane and compromise the sacred.

In my Bible reading today, I read from 1 Kings about Solomon, an extraordinary man. Clearly, he was deeply devoted to the Lord. He spent years and phenomenal resources building God’s temple, in impressive structure, to say the least. He prayed for wisdom and understanding rather than many other things when God offered any wish. He prays an amazing prayer in chapter 8 dedicating the temple, and committing himself and Israel to the Lord.

However, from early on, we read that Solomon compromised, initially in small ways, and then the compromise grew. 1 Kings 3:3 recounts, “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.” These high places became a distraction for Israel from worshipping the one true God. By chapter 11, we read that “King Solomon loved many foreign women,” despite God’s command, “you shall not enter into marriage with them.” As a result, “his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God.” (11:4) If the wisest man who ever lived allowed his conscience to be calloused to the whisper of the Spirit, what hope is there for me?

My only hope is that God will show me grace, and His Spirit will master my life in such a way that I will choose to obey God’s voice through my conscience. How are you and I tempted to compromise in subtle ways, to turn a deaf ear to the Spirit’s gentle whisper? Is it in the area of finances, or popularity, or sex, or power, or … ? Let us withdraw, reflect, and pray David’s prayer from Psalm 139: 23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!”