Page 45 Finally, we have a passage in the book of Acts that opens up another vista altogether. In Acts 24:16, Paul declares: This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men. (NKJV) Each one of us has a conscience. Your conscience is an inward monitor that goes off when you step out of God’s moral will. It’s like an alarm. If you violate it, it brings you under conviction. It is not condemnation, which comes from God’s enemy or from a preacher who tells you how terrible a Christian you are. It comes from your human spirit, the place where God dwells. Both the Holy Spirit and your conscience bear witness to the truth (Romans 9:1). It is by your conscience that you can discern the moral will of God. Anything that offends your conscience is something to stay clear of. Anything that your conscience allows is permissible for you. There is another aspect of the conscience that we will handle in the last chapter. It has to do with the way the conscience is shaped. (The Bible also speaks about a ,seared conscience. But this is in reference to people who continue to reject the dictates of their conscience to the point that it doesn’t operate any longer–1 Tim. 4:2.) To sum up, we have been given five lighthouses that guide us into the moral will of God: The inward promptings and instincts of the Holy Spirit written on our minds and hearts (Heb. 8; Rom. 8; Gal. 5),