A Clean Conscience
With a Clean Conscience
“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
Hebrews 9:13-14
Each year Israel would depend on the sacrifice offered to grant them a clear conscience before Jehovah. Each year this was required. On top of that there were so many other offerings to be made for different sins and omissions and oblations. This was so they could have a mind to serve their God. The entire OT is riddled with the examples of how they did not serve God. Rituals become tiresome and just that, a ritual. There is nothing relational in those actions unless you choose for their to be.
I want a clean conscience. That is to say I want to be able to serve God without the knowledge of presumptuous sin, sin of omission, or sin of pride and self-righteousness. This only can be because Christ made the perfect sin sacrifice once and for all. No rituals needed...however, we can make “repentance” a ritual. How often have I knelt in prayer and started to regurgitate the same thing...day in and day out...just “confessing my sin” because I am supposed to?
I want my clean conscience to be a byproduct of my relationship with Christ Jesus. I want to know that when I kneel to enter into the God’s Throne Room it is because of Grace. I want the gratitude for ALL that He is to pour out of my heart, not my mouth. I want to realize how depraved I am and how desperately I need to give Christ my life today so He might resurrect His Spirit in me so that my wife, kids, grandkids, neighbors, church family, whoever it may be would only see Jesus.
My clean conscience is a choice as that Christ has finished all that needs be done for me to represent and present exactly who He is. It is not begotten in ritualistic regurgitation but in relational adulation and responsive adaptation. Let that simmer for a bit.
Pastor Larry Hof
“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
Hebrews 9:13-14
Each year Israel would depend on the sacrifice offered to grant them a clear conscience before Jehovah. Each year this was required. On top of that there were so many other offerings to be made for different sins and omissions and oblations. This was so they could have a mind to serve their God. The entire OT is riddled with the examples of how they did not serve God. Rituals become tiresome and just that, a ritual. There is nothing relational in those actions unless you choose for their to be.
I want a clean conscience. That is to say I want to be able to serve God without the knowledge of presumptuous sin, sin of omission, or sin of pride and self-righteousness. This only can be because Christ made the perfect sin sacrifice once and for all. No rituals needed...however, we can make “repentance” a ritual. How often have I knelt in prayer and started to regurgitate the same thing...day in and day out...just “confessing my sin” because I am supposed to?
I want my clean conscience to be a byproduct of my relationship with Christ Jesus. I want to know that when I kneel to enter into the God’s Throne Room it is because of Grace. I want the gratitude for ALL that He is to pour out of my heart, not my mouth. I want to realize how depraved I am and how desperately I need to give Christ my life today so He might resurrect His Spirit in me so that my wife, kids, grandkids, neighbors, church family, whoever it may be would only see Jesus.
My clean conscience is a choice as that Christ has finished all that needs be done for me to represent and present exactly who He is. It is not begotten in ritualistic regurgitation but in relational adulation and responsive adaptation. Let that simmer for a bit.
Pastor Larry Hof
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