Is your conscience clear with God? Or do you feel guilty, not quite good enough? Because of the shed blood of Christ, we can come before God with a clear conscience. It is about God, not us. 

We sing songs about the blood washing away our sins in some of the old hymns, but it is rare to talk about it and even rarer to hear a sermon on the blood. I have often wondered why this is. It is only by the shed blood of Christ that we can live a life free from the guilt and shame of sin. It is only by the shed blood of Christ that we can stand before God, pure and blameless in His sight. It is only because of the blood that we will be able one day to enter the pearly gates of heaven.

From the time of Adam’s fall, forgiveness required the shedding of blood. The forgiveness of sin is not something to be taken lightly. We may forgive someone for something, but that is not the same thing. The forgiveness of sin requires a life to pay for our forgiveness. God’s way of dealing with sin is with sacrificial blood. In the Old Testament, it was the blood of animals atoning for sin. But with the new covenant, it is the shed blood of Jesus Christ that not only atones for sin but cleanses away sin for all time.  “God has raised from death our Lord Jesus, who is the Great Sheperd of the sheep as a result of his blood, by which the eternal covenant is sealed (Hebrews 13:20)” GNB

Hebrews 9:11-18 expresses that the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed toward what Jesus would later provide. They were a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus and His death on the cross.

When the Bible speaks of our sins being washed away, it means, we are forgiven. Our sins, which had defiled us, are gone. By the grace of God through the blood sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, we are clean, as white as snow. Our sins are washed away, never to be remembered again.

“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, purifies us from all sin.” 1John 1:7 NIV

Note that John states that God cleanses us from “All” sin. All means all, past, present, and future sins. As we trust God to cleanse us from the stain of past sins; we may also trust Him to cleanse us from all present sins. We may have things in the past that we cannot forgive ourselves for, and therefore we tend to think God hasn’t forgiven us for them either.  But when God says all He means all. Yes, ALL of them, if not we are taking away from this precious promise of God. If we conclude that “all” does not mean quite all, aren’t we saying that God’s promises are not completely true? By refusing to take it in its fullness, are we not limiting God’s power to keep us pure? We are looking to our frail efforts to stay sin-free rather than relying on God’s promise. We are limiting the cleansing power of the precious blood of Christ and the keeping power of God to keep us pure at all times. 

God’s forgiveness, just as His Holy Word is always in the present tense. It is a continual presence, always a present tense, not a present tense which in the next moment becomes a past tense. It is now, this very moment!

Hebrews, chapter 10 tells us that through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. 

When we accept Christ as our savour, we no longer have to feel guilty for our sins, living under the bondage of sin, but we can confidently enter pure and blameless into the very presence of God. 

Verse 10; “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.”

Verse 14: “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Verse 19: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,

All that is required is accepting, in simple and unquestioning faith God’s commands and promises. If we do that we are “free” of sin. The blood of Christ paid our sin debt past, present, and future.

We all have had regrets in our past, things we wish we hadn’t done or said. God is not concerned about our past, even a minute or a second ago. He is concerned about right now, this very instant. Anything that has happened in the past is past, even a second ago, He has already forgiven us and forgotten it, to be remembered no more (Jeremiah 31:34). God is concerned about you right now. He is concerned about your heart! Are you loving Him? Are you loving others? That is really all God asks of us. If we are doing that and He has already forgiven us of “all” our sins, what do we have to feel guilty about? For many of us, it is time we forgive ourselves of our past mistakes. It is time we let go of those things that are keeping us from our full potential in serving our Lord and King.

We should be guilt-free. Our conscience should be clear before God. If not, it is because of Satan telling us otherwise. Guilt is one of Satan’s greatest weapons. He keeps reminding us of our past mistakes and our present shortcomings. When we listen to Satan and start believing his lies, we can fall into the trap of thinking we need to try harder to please God. We start relying on our own efforts rather than believing wholeheartedly in God’s grace and the cleansing power of the blood of Christ. 

At times like this, we need to stand up to the devil and remind him that we are sin-free, guilt-free, and as pure as snow because of the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. We are free of sin. We are free of our past.

As we grow in grace and become more Christ-like, we may be tempted to think that because God has been dealing with us, and because He has been taking steps to bring us into something more of Himself, and has been teaching us deeper lessons of the Cross; He has therefore set before us new standards, and that only by attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment. It can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood. We can never approach God on our merit, regardless of how good we may feel we are. A clear conscience can only come when we realize it doesn’t depend upon our merit but upon the Heavenly Father’s merit alone. 

If God sees us as pure then we are pure indeed and we should see ourselves as pure also, completely guilt-free. Able to enter boldly into the presence of God with a clear conscience. Only then can we be at our very best as a servant of the Most High King.