Have you ever heard the expression “Let your conscience be your guide”?  It’s good advice, of course, but what exactly is your conscience?

Your conscience is one of those things that is kind of hard to describe but we all know what it is.  The easiest definition is that it is the still, small voice that warns you that you’re making a bad decision.  It’s sort of like a flashing check engine light on your car that’s telling you to pull over and figure out what’s going on.  

But your conscience does more than that.  It also helps you enjoy doing what is right.  It’s a pat on the back to say: “Good on you!  You’re doing a good thing!”

Here’s the trouble with our conscience: it can get short-circuited.  Instead of waving us off from doing something we shouldn’t, it can be an internal voice that justifies a bad decision.  That can be anything from eating an entire bag of chips to stealing something or worse.

The apostle Paul talks about this when he wrote: “My conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, also assures me that I am not lying.”

In other words, Paul knows that his conscience is functioning as it should because it isn’t just operating on its own.  It’s guided by the Holy Spirit.  Good advice, I’d say, because it takes the guesswork out of whether or not your conscience is being entirely honest with you.  You can be sure of things because, ultimately, the Holy Spirit of God is at the helm.

So maybe the saying shouldn’t be “Let your conscience be your guide”.  It would be far better to say “Let your conscience be guided.”  

And how can you know that the Holy Spirit is guiding your conscience?  By inviting that Spirit of goodness in!  And the best way to accomplish that is through worship (you had to know we’d end up with that declaration!).  

That’s why I hope you will join us regularly for worship on Sunday mornings.  In worship, we both evaluate our lives and open our lives to God.  In doing so, we become better people; more engaged people, people who are guided by a goodness that is beyond ourselves.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic