I had it on my heart to write about this topic because God has put it on my heart strongly. Maybe it is because many people are struggling with having a seared conscious. First, we need to understand, what exactly is a seared conscious?
Timothy 4:1-2 says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared as with a hot iron”
If someone gets burned from a hot iron, it destroys their nerves. If someone continually gets burned over and over again, they will not have feeling in that same spot anymore. In the same way, the apostle Paul was describing someone’s conviction having been completely desensitized or numb. For example, if someone has lied for long periods of their life, it almost becomes normal where when they do it, they don’t believe it’s wrong anymore. This can also go for pornography, bitterness, chasing money, fame, etc., you name it. Any unsurrendered, or unrepented area of our life is sin. Not only does sin separate us from God, but it can open doors for other sin and invite other parts of darkness into our lives. I can remember times in my life where I would be convicted of something by the Holy Spirit, but I would ignore it in pride, and then in turn, ignore my relationship with God. This has led to some very bad decisions. A lot of times, they are deep heart issues that people could not see from the outside. For some reason, the sin “seemed” so desirable and fed my flesh, ignoring what Romans 8: 5-8 says,
“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”
I certainly did not have life and peace being in sin, and don’t believe anyone can have peace when there is unrepented sin in their life. I certainly was not pleasing God either. We can go days, weeks, months and years in unrepented sin and not think anything of it. Some people choose this, and then they hit rock bottom and finally repent. A personal time in my life was when I was sick with lyme disease, and realized how much fear and anxiety had a hold of me, I had to re-surrender areas of life to God and repent. The danger in waiting to repent is one: a severed, broken, or no relationship with God, or two: we don’t know our final day, and I believe if we die in our unrepented sin, we can risk living eternally in hell. This is another reason why I do not believe we just say a prayer to get into heaven one time and that is our ticket into eternal glory with God, but instead, a continual humble, repentant lifestyle that glorifies God. There are so many scriptures to back this up, but that is another blog.
There is some good news though, that we can live a life of freedom and peace if we take some simple steps in our lives to overcome sin:
The first: Repentance
If we know we did something wrong, we repent right away, and not go back to it. One of my favorite scriptures on this because it depicts it so clearly is Proverbs 26:11:
“As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly”
Second: Shed light on sin
We can’t keep sinning in darkness. We must shed light on our sin so we can become free and Jesus can cleanse us as 1 John 1:6-7 says,
“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Thirdly: Ask others to help you-or confess your sins to fellow believers
Humility is key, and some of the most beautiful moments is when we expose and tell people of our sins, so that we can get help and have people pray for us to overcome as James 5:15 says:
“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed”
Let’s repent and turn from sin, before it kills us.