Horatius Bonar writes in Words to Winners of Souls, “Take heed to thyself. Your own soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body alone can work with power, much more a healthy soul.” Bonar then presents four ways by which one is to accomplish the personal care of the soul.
First, “keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb.” I remember once asking a great Christian brother how he managed to keep such a level head. I never saw him angry or irritated. This brother just keeps his cool. I have seen him agitated but not distraught—“shaken, but not stirred” (so to speak), but he is such a consistent person with his demeanor that I just had to ask how he did it. He simply smiled and said, “keep short accounts with God.”
“That’s it?” I wondered.
“That’s it.” And he just smiled.
John MacArthur illustrates the purpose and function of the conscience.
"In 1984 an Avonca Jet crashed in Spain. As always after a crash like that investigators study the accident scene looking for the black box. The black box is the cockpit recorder, and that’s important so they can reconstruct the conversation as well as the electronics, the technology is recorded in that black box unit to try to determine why the accident happened. Amazingly when the found the black box and they played the recording it revealed that several minutes before the plane flew straight into the side of a mountain, a shrill computer synthesized voice from the planes automatic warning system told the crew repeatedly "pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up." The pilot inexplicably snapped back "shut up gringo!" and flipped off the switch. Minutes later the plane smashed into the mountain and everybody was, of course instantly killed.
When I read that It appeared to me to be a great illustration of how the conscience functions, and how a modern people treat their conscience. Conscience is the souls warning system. And it tells us when to "pull up" to go another direction, to make an immediate midcourse correction because were flying into disaster.
[1]"
The conscience belongs to Christ and should be protected (1 Cor. 8:12), informed by the Word of God (2 Cor. 4:2) and is connected to faith (1 Tim. 1:19; 3:9). Apart from these the conscience is broken, shut off, seared in hypocrisy (1 Tim. 4:2). The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience from dead works (Heb. 9:14) and is the basis for our drawing near to God (Heb 10:22).
Secondly, Bonar writes, “keep up close communion with God”. This refers to the running and meaningful conversation one is to maintain. One cannot minister out what he does not have within. There should be an echo of David’s cry within saying “far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD from ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23). Communion or fellowship with God is reflected on our fellowship with others. John writes “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and 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 Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7).
The Irish peddler helps us understand the importance and necessity of our keeping close to God. Someone said to him, "It's a grand thing to be saved."
"Aye," said the peddler, "It is. But I think something is equally as good as that."
"What can you possibly think is equal to salvation?"
"The companionship of the Man who has saved me," was the reply.
Again John reminds us "our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). We fellowship not with a concept such as salvation, but with the person of our salvation; that is, our love is for a person, not a state of being.
Thirdly, Bonar instructs that one must “study likeness to Him in all things.” Robert Murray McCheyne tutors E.M Bounds:
Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer.
[2]Certainly one hears the echo of 2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Peter asks his readers, “And who is the one who will harm you if you become imitators of the good?” (1 Peter 3:13). Many times Paul encourages his audience to imitate Christ in the same way he does (1 Cor. 4:16; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thess. 1:6) and in so doing, getting to know Christ in all things.
Recently I overhead a conversation that contained this golden nugget: we cannot keep what is on the inside from showing up on the outside. What we do easily tells if what say is true or not because we live out who we are. I think this person was simply summarizing Proverbs 23:7 “as he thinks in his heart, so is he” and what Jesus taught saying, “Do you not perceive that whatever enters into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter into his heart, but into the belly, and goes out into the waste-bowl, purifying all food? And He said, that which comes out of the man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things pass out from inside and defile the man. (Mark 7:18-23).
We’ve been through the WWJD fad, now it is time to ask it for real. When we study HIM, we detach from self-at-center and are taken to the borders of our existence to find Him at center, as Bonhoeffer would say. We begin to look at the requirements of the Christian life and counting the cost would then spend whatever it takes to finish well. Someone once pointed out that if you want your father to take care of you, that's paternalism; if you want your mother to take care of you, that's maternalism. If you want Uncle Sam to take care of you, that's Socialism and if you want some dedicated extremists to take over the government and take care of you, that's Communism (we would say slavery). If you want and are able to take care of yourself, that's Americanism. If you surrender all to Christ and want God to take care of you, that is true Christianity. Of course, you'll be called a "square" or an "extremist," or a "crackpot," but you will have the best for time and eternity.
Finally, “read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people.” One cannot help but remember Jesus feeding the 5000. Both He and the disciples have just finished a retreat, time alone with God because of their ministry and as they leave, they are met by multitudes of people who need ministerial attention. Get the picture: they went to God for spiritual nourishment having exhausted their ministerial resources, as it were, and now there are all these people receiving newly supplied ministry and it is getting late, the people need to eat. Jesus is introduced to a boy who makes a present of his lunch (loaves and fishes). Jesus takes these, looks to heaven, gives thanks (now watch this), then breaks the loaves and fishes and gives the pieces to the disciples who then give to the crowd. Mark 6:41 records that “He divided up the two fish among them all.” Luke 9:16 says “He blessed them, and broke them, and kept giving them to the disciples to set before the multitude.”
The disciples did not receive one great big healthy portion that grew in their hands as they moved among the crowd. Start again from the beginning: they went to God because they “ran out” and were refitted for the next round of ministry. In this new round Jesus went to God for the distribution blessing, then the disciples went to Jesus to get what the crowd needed. Once they were out, they went back and received more from Him and this kept going until the trash was more than what anyone could eat! The disciples were not to hoard the food then pinch off flakes for everyone. They were to receive and benefit from Jesus first—to see the miracle in their own hands first—then they were to give it to the crowd.
The next day Jesus would say “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never hunger and he who believes in Me shall never thirst . . . I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread he shall live forever.” (John 6:35, 51). What Jesus is saying here is that one must take all of him as if one were eating. It is a complete action, an all-consuming action. If when “eating”, taking Christ for all He is, the eater is changed, then that which comes out of him are those things that evidence a new, clean, God-saturated heart. His ministry is effective and complete! Since He is the Word of God, we are to internalize it and follow how it changes us. From this we are then to minister to those around us.A physician went to hear D. L. Moody. Although he had not thought of such a result, he was converted. When asked the reason for his change of heart, he said, "I went to hear Mr. Moody with no other idea than to have something to laugh at. I knew he was no scholar, and I felt sure I could find many flaws in his argument. But I found I could not get at the man. He stood there hiding behind the Bible and just fired one Bible text after another at me till they went home to my heart straight as bullets from a rifle. I tell you, Moody's power is in the way he has his Bible at the tip of his tongue."
[1] MacArthur, John. “Winning the War from the Inside Out”.
[2] Bounds, E.M. Men of Prayer Needed.
