Jesus and Conscience

Jesus did not use the word for conscience. He spoke about the heart.

Jesus perceives that people honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him. (Mk. 7:6) His mission is to seek and save those who are lost in their sin and guilt. He likens his message to a seed that brings forth much fruit when it falls on the good ground of an honest and good heart that will hear it and keep it. (Luke 8:15)

Those who hear Jesus and look at themselves through his eyes, begin to perceive how they appear in God's sight. Through Jesus' eyes the proud and self-righteous discover that they are unacceptable to God, though they may not believe it. On the other hand, penitent sinners see that, in spite of their sin, God loves them, accepts them, and wants to transform their hearts and lives.

Lives are transformed by a wholehearted response to Christ's call to discipleship. Jesus commands his disciples to turn away from a life of sin and calls them to follow him, his teachings and his example. Disciples are to bear witness to the character and quality of Christ's life, sacrificial death and resurrection by the character and quality of their own life of sacrificial love and service. Literally, disciples are to be ready and willing to give up their lives for others in the same humble, self-sacrificing Spirit in which Christ took up a cross and died for all humanity.

Short of making the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus expects his disciples to maintain a pure heart by loving God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength, by loving their neighbors as themselves, by loving each other as he has loved them, and by loving even their enemies.