Dealing with a Guilty Conscience

Most understand the concept of “let your conscience be your guide.” As we make decisions we listen to that little voice telling us what to do. In cartoons, this idea is depicted as an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The conscience can be a great tool. It enables us to make quick decisions. When there is a decision that involves a sin, your conscience should make you feel squeamish.

But what happens when we go against our conscience? What happens when we get that squeamish feeling, but we plow ahead? Usually, we walk away with a guilty conscience, upset that we did what we knew to be wrong. This article is not about the proper training of your conscience. This article is about how to fix a guilty conscience. There are four ways to fix a guilty conscience: we can try to justify ourselves, we can blame others, we can try to hide our action, or we can confess our sin.

Luke 10 tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. This was to deal with a lawyer who was trying to justify himself. The lawyer wanted to know what to do to inherit eternal life, but he already knew (love God and your neighbor). Jesus told him to do these things. This man had obviously not been a good neighbor and Jesus pricked his conscience; so the man tried to justify himself by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” With the parable, Jesus thumped his conscience even harder and left the man unjustified!

We can also deal with a guilty conscience – as Adam and Eve did – by blaming others. We talk about “passing the buck” – this was the original instance in which a buck was passed. Adam is confronted, not just by his conscience but, by God. To deal with this guilt, Adam blames Eve (and in so doing, he blames God – “the woman YOU gave me”). Now, Eve is on the chopping block and to deal with her guilt she blames Satan. We must understand that while Satan wants us to sin and encourages us to sin; we are the ones who sin. In James 1, we see the act and result of sin equated to sex and the conception of a child. James says that we sin because we wanted to sin. In this great passage on sin, James says nothing about Satan. Ezekiel 18:20 says “the soul that sins shall die.”

David tried to deal with a guilty conscience by covering it up. He tried to hide from his guilt. The lesson in David’s story is that God knows our guilt – we cannot hide it from Him. Proverbs 28:13 teaches that the one who hides his transgression will not prosper. As David states in Psalm 32, when we hide our sins we “waste away.”

However, David is also the example of how to properly deal with guilt. When Nathan confronted David with his sin, David did not try to justify himself; he did not blame anyone else; he was done hiding. He simply confesses, “I have sinned.” Psalm 51 is David’s plea to God for forgiveness and mercy. He asks God for a “clean heart” and a “right spirit.” That is all we can do when we have sinned. This is the proper way to deal with a guilty conscience. Psalm 32 is David’s praise about the blessedness of forgiveness. Before he confessed his sins he was miserable. After he confessed his sins, he was ecstatic with forgiveness.

The conscience is a great tool when trained properly. When you trump your conscience, when you ignore it, there is only one way to deal properly with the guilt you feel – confess your sin to God and seek His forgiveness.

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