Establishing A Clear Conscience

In review of Psalm 139:23-24 it says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”

Bottom Line:

God look at my heart, point out what offends you and guide me in the right direction.

What this means to me:

I ask you God to help search my heart (the guidance center of my life) to find out everything I’m thinking. I ask you to point out that which offends you and to lead me to the path of everlasting life.

Today's passage comes at the end of Psalm 139. In this psalm David is conversing with God. He knows that God knows everything about him, there is no place David can go that he can be hidden from God. After all, God had formed David and us, and he has made each of us unique and wonderfully complex.  What we need most is think through our lives and with God's help examine our motives, thinking, actions and things we have done. We allow God to help us realize where we've missed the mark and ask for his forgiveness and the guidance to make changes to become more like the person he wants us to become.

So, the first step on the path to a clear conscience is to take a personal moral inventory or a personal spiritual assessment, so in my quiet times I get with God and review my life and ask God to help me think of where I’ve missed the mark, sinned or have wrong through patterns. I then agree with God and ask for forgiveness.  I also ask him to bring to mind anything I wasn’t thinking of so that I can be clear with him.

I often even use Psalm 139:23-24 as I pray: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (NLT). You’re saying, “God, turn your spotlight on my inner self. Find the stuff in me that’s entangled me and that’s holding me back.”

Even though I try to do this in my quiet times, it wouldn’t hurt me to spend some extended times where I’m not rushed and really think through the patterns of my life and the character and directions I wish to take. It may even help to write it down and to be specific.

There is nothing more important than to have the blessing of God. I need to take the time to get alone, and do a personal spiritual assessment.