The purpose of our conscience - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2026

Give to your servant an understanding heart that I may discern between good and evil.

How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
1 Kings 3:9; Hebrews 9:14.

The purpose of our conscience
To distinguish between good and evil we need a moral sense organ, a kind of measuring instrument. But every measuring instrument has to be calibrated to give a correct reading. Our conscience can be good, weak, burdened or hardened, and also needs an established standard, which we do not have in ourselves.

Take this example: when someone drives a vehicle, the standard speed is not in the driver's discretion, but is laid down by the traffic regulations. What is the standard by which man should live his life on earth? It is what God has decided and can be found in the Bible.

It shows us how soon the first couple gave way to evil - God calls it sin. And their descendants followed them. Man's conscience indicates his guilt before God, but people ignore it and run away from God.

Later God gave the Old Testament law to arouse the conscience and "calibrate" it anew. We cannot keep the law. It is not the law, but only the blood of Jesus Christ that can free our conscience from every burden and cleanse us from our sins (cf. 1 John 1:7).

Whoever lays claim to the atoning death of Jesus Christ will get a clear conscience. We shall still need to let God's light constantly standardise our conscience to be able to judge clearly; it will then be like a window that has been cleaned to allow the sunlight to shine through it.

Today's reading: Genesis 39:1-23 · Psalms 24:1-10