When it comes to making decisions in your life, you’ve often heard it said, “Let your conscience be your guide.” Should our conscience be our guide?
According to Dictionary.com, conscience is defined as the following: “the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one’s conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong.” We all have a conscience or that little voice within our heads telling us that something is right or wrong. But is our conscience truly a reliable guide when it comes to making decisions in life?
It is necessary to consider a very important fact about our consciences: every person’s conscience is different. For instance although most people’s consciences would tell them stealing is wrong, not everyone’s conscience would tell them that. This idea is crucial when it comes to considering whether or not one’s conscience is a good tool for determining the right decision to make. The absolute truth, the Word of God, which must be followed is a set standard that does not waver. If each conscience leads a person in the same situation to a little different conclusion, how can consciences be considered a good standard?
Does that mean that we can never rely on our conscience? I think the answer to that question is no. We can use our conscience to help us in decision-making if we have trained our conscience. If we realize that we must follow the Bible and we have trained our conscience using that standard, then our conscience can be a very helpful tool in decision making. With that said, we must still be careful because we are human and we are imperfect. However the Bible is the perfect guide, as 2nd Timothy 3:16-17 states: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”