LIVING IN GOOD CONSCIENCE

A courtroom. A slap. A fearless confession. 

In Acts 23, Paul declares a clear conscience before God—and means it. 

This episode reveals how a life trained to agree with God’s view, not accusation or history, produces great results under pressure. 

Discover how co-perception turns identity into action when the heat is on.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene In Acts 23
• 2:23 Warnings, Arrest, And Sanhedrin
• 4:13 “Good Conscience” And New Creation
• 7:33 Identity Over Past Sin
• 10:18 Words, Focus, And Transformation
• 13:43 Conscience Tested Before The High Priest
• 16:03 Aligning Thoughts With God’s View
• 19:03 Before God: Confidence And Courage
• 21:03 Pharisees, Sadducees, And Uproar
• 24:03 Void Of Offense To God And Men
• 27:03 Co‑Perception Toward God, Self, Others
• 30:03 Practicing Love And Right Vision
• 32:03 Speaking Life Over Family
• 34:03 Standing Against Accusation In Faith

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Hello everyone, welcome back to DIY Salvation. We are still talking about co-perception. Today's topic is titled Living in Good Conscience Before God. And we start our discourse today from Acts chapter 23, verse 1, which is Paul's famous words about having a good conscience. The setting of Acts chapter 23 is intense and political, and it happens, this particular incident happens immediately after Paul's arrest in Jerusalem. Now, what led up to his arrest? Paul had just returned to Jerusalem after some years after his missionary journeys, right? And he decided he was going to go back to Jerusalem. But you know, the Holy Spirit warned him, or many people, even prophets, warned him repeatedly that chains and afflictions were waiting for him in Jerusalem. But he goes anyways. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is leading him. He had a prophetic word, obviously, for him to you for in spite of all the warnings, he still went because he knows that that was God's will for him. So God was just preparing his mind by telling him that chains and affliction is awaiting for you. God was just preparing his mind so that he will be able to endure it. Now he gets to Jerusalem, and in the temple, he starts to tell witness about Jesus. And in the temple, Jews from Asia they began to accuse him of teaching against the law. They accused him of teaching against Moses. They even accused him of defiling the temple. We know that none of this is true, but you know what? It triggers a riot, right? So the Roman commander Claudius arrests Paul, not to punish him although, but to stop the mob from killing him. So after the riot at the temple, right? The Roman commander, after arresting Paul, he wants to know the reason why the Jews are so violently opposed to Paul. So of course he takes him from the crowd, he orders the Sanhedrin, who they are the Jewish ruling council council, to examine him. And then it's that examination that Paul, of course, gives us the testimony and all that. And Paul, Acts chapter 23 opens with Paul standing before the Sanhedrin, and then he says, makes a very remarkable statement. He says, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. That the Jewish council, they had all supported him. You know, the leaders they have all the political leaders they had all supported him and paid him to do this work and sent him to do it. And then God called him. He now talks about how Jesus met him on the way and Jesus delivered him, and Jesus said, Stop, you know, persecuting me. And he met him on the way and sent him, you know, on his assignment and so on and so forth. Then he comes in Acts chapter 23, verse 1, and he says, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. So now that we've seen good conscience, and we know that, of course, if you look at it at first glance, you would seem like Paul is boasting of his moral uprightness throughout his life. But we know it's not about his moral uprightness because he just talked about how vile he was before the Lord called him, right? Now, considering his past as a persecutor of Christians, you have to, you know, you if you hear that kind of word, you would question the authenticity of his claim. Did Paul truly have a good conscience? Did he live with a good conscience because he supervised the murder of Stephen, right? Or was it just simply lying? Do you understand? So we have to examine this verse of scripture in light of the concept of co-perception so that we can gain deeper insight into Paul's statement, remembering that this word co-perception starts with Paul. He talks about it severally in his letters, and that's the reason why we're even studying it in the first place. And without his revelation, you know, he said he had lots of revelations with the Lord Jesus Christ. Without his revelations, we will not even be discussing this. We won't be talking about faith. Do you get? Okay, so now we now understand that based on Paul's declaration, he said, I have lived in all conscious good conscience before God until this day. He was trying to explain something. You remember in our last episode, we talked about the fact that the you have to have an inner confirmation or inner assurance of salvation, and that is when God imparts to you a good conscience. Your conscience is the voice of the spirit, so that means your spirit is made whole at new birth. Do you understand? So, Paul, although he was a murderer before new birth, he underwent transformation during his conversion. Do you understand? As a new creation in Christ, Paul was no longer, he was saying to everybody that listen, I am no longer defined by my past actions, I am a new creation. The old has passed away, the new is here. The moment Saul became Paul, he received a pure conscience. A pure conscience, remember, I told you is the voice of the spirit. Man came alive, he was lit up. Do you understand? He was he became holy, blameless, and free from sin. And from that point onward, Paul he is saying that listen, from that moment that I was changed, I maintained a co-perception with God. This is a very strong statement to make. He said, I maintained a co-perception with God. I lived in all good conscience before God until this day. In other words, from the day Jesus met me and turned my life around, I have lived according to his perception of me. I am who God says I am, I can do what God says I can do, and I have what God says I have. Do you have this testimony? This is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you understand? This is the testimony. Do you have this testimony that in spite of everything that you can stand? And I'm see, you have this is not something that you have to start thinking about the sin you committed yesterday and you the one you did last week. And then you know, it's that from the day you were born again, the way God sees you, the blood of Jesus covers you completely. So you are made whole. When you enter, when you decided to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you entered a covenant. Do you understand? It was a vow that you made. So your one sin or your five sins or your ten sins cannot annul that covenant. That's what I'm trying to let you know. It cannot annul it. And for you to even grow up from the sins, so-called the so-called sins in quotes, you have to maintain a core perception, otherwise, you can't do it. I told you in our last episode that for you to even walk in love, it's not something that you make a mental ascent of and decide that I'm going to walk in love today. Because everything around you will test you. That the way to do it is that you first become now become conscious. Now you're already born again, right? Now you need to be conscious of that fact. It is that consciousness of that fact that will change your words, and your words will change your life and cause you to do what you have already become. Do you get now? So Paul was a murderer. Sorry, Saul was a murderer. Paul is a new creation, all things have passed away. Paul's clear conscience came from his identity as a child of God, and so should yours. Because so, sorry, Paul had focused, has shifted his focus from persecuting Christians to now saving souls. He's not the same person. So when he proclaimed that he has lived in a good conscience before God, he was speaking from the reality of his new life in Christ. He says, My, see, this conscience matter is even better. If your conscience is the one that is persecuting you, then you have a big problem. So this is why I need to solve this matter. He says, I have lived in all good conscience. What does that mean? It means that he conducted himself in such a way as to maintain his co-perception with God. Paul was not preoccupied with sinning. Okay, if we want to talk about sinning, let's look at the next. If we look at that Acts chapter 23, verse 1. Shortly after Paul has said this thing and he boasted and said he has lived in good, all good conscience before God until this day. You know, the high priest sent somebody to slap him, or was it the high priest that slaps him now? And he hits him on the face, right? And when he does that, Paul became angry and he called him. He said, You whitewashed wall. In other words, you are full of, you know, what do they call it that sins, but now you stand as if you're holier than thou. He now said to him, He said, Do you stand before me and then you accuse me of breaking the law? Yet you slap me as against the law. Are you not also breaking the law? Do you get? So, what was he saying to him? He was telling him that you're you're wrong in hitting me because you have also broken the law. You are accusing me of breaking the law, but you have also wrong because you are also breaking the law. And immediately somebody says, That's the high priest you're talking to like that. And Paul immediately repents and he says, Oh, I didn't know it was the high priest because I'm supposed to honor your office as the high priest. But that does not make change the fact that you did wrong. Do you get so if we're to be counting sins against Paul, of course, that already is a sin because now he has spoken against the authority that God has set in place. So it's not about whether or not it's not about your doings. Do you understand? This way I'm trying to help you to understand that it's not about the things that you did wrong, all the things that you've been counting, whether it's wrong or that's not still not an excuse to do wrong. I'm only just saying that if you have been doing wrong, it shows that you've got it all wrong. That you need to change your focus now. If you've been doing wrong and you're struggling with it, that you have to change your focus now and turn it around. This time around, focus on being. Now become conscious of your being and begin to speak. Hold faith and co-perception together and watch yourself begin to do what you have been desiring to do. That's what I'm trying to challenge you to do. Because it all starts with being, you have to become first before you do. Triggered. So Paul said that for himself, from the day he became born again, he was not preoccupied with whether he was sinning or not. Because again, he has said it before that he didn't even know much about the gospel. It was what the Lord was teaching him, and that he went and he served, went on his missionary journeys, and started preaching the gospel to people who were not Jews, right? And they accepted his message, he saw the miracles, he saw the things that were going on. After some years, he decided that he was going to come back to Jerusalem and show himself to the apostles and tell them, give them testimonies of what has been going on with him while he was away and how that the Gentiles were also receiving the gospel. Do you get so Paul said, I was not preoccupied all this while we doing, we do whether I'm wrong or right. Because already from his if was to be if it was his if his salvation was to be based on doing, he was already, he had already failed. He was a murderer. Do you understand? He had failed already. He was the one that was Jesus stood before him and said, Why are you persecuting me? Has the has the master ever accused you before of some of wrongdoing before? Because that's the worst thing ever. You know the master would never do that, right? But imagine that situation when the master said, You why are you persecuting me? What did I do to you? And and Saul was like, Who are you? Like, I don't know you, like I've never met you before. How are you even saying that I've been persecuting you? And he says, I am Jesus, whom you have been persecuting. So while Jesus was alive, even if they were contemporaries, Paul or Saul had never met Jesus, but now he met him even after he had gone, you know, to heaven, and then he repented and became a changed man. So if it was about sins, Paul would not even stand a chance. You, your own sins, have you killed somebody before? Have you killed even Christians? Did the Lord meet you and accuse you? Do you understand? So you you can't be as bad of as Saul, and I'm talking about Christians because I know some people that are not born again. If you're not born again and you've done like really nasty things and you want to turn around, they of course take a cue from from Saul as well, because he turned around and he gave his life to Christ and he became a brand new creature creature, creation. All right, so the same way. So Paul said, I did not my my emphasis was never on on wrongdoing, but it had always been about having a co-perception with God. I needed to come to a place in my life where I needed to see myself the way God sees me. I had to come to the realization that I am truly who God says I am, I can do what God says I can do, and I truly have what God says I have. And he says that way he maintained it, and he had maintained it from that beginning up until that moment he was speaking. So, in other words, it doesn't matter what you guys are accusing me of. I am innocent. As long as Jesus does not accuse me, as long as Jesus does not condemn me, you cannot condemn me. How powerful is that statement? That was the reason why he was slapped. Like, really, is that what you have to say in your defense? So, of course, this meant that his thoughts, his words, his actions aligned with God's words and plans. You have to get to that point in your life as well. You have to meditate on the fact that you are who God says you are. If God says you are a new creation, you are a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, everything is new. You have what God says you have, you have eternal life. Glory to God. You have eternal life. And he says that you have you can do what God says you can do. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You must align your thoughts along those lines. Never again should you feel depressed and down and low. Go back to the scriptures and find out what the Lord, who does the what does the Lord say about you? Who are you in Christ? Who are you in him? Do you understand? And go back because this is this is this is your defense against the enemy. Because the Bible says that is the enemy, the accuser of the brethren. So when he comes accusing you, what do you have to stand on? You have to stand on business. Now, what is the business? The business of co-perception. You have to stand on that business, you know, because that's what the Bible says. The word of God is the sword of the spirit. So you grab it, grab the word of God. This is what the word, the word of the Lord says, and then use you smite the enemy with that. Do you understand? When Jesus met Satan during his temptation, what happened? You had Jesus, Satan was quoting scriptures. What did Jesus do? He used the scriptures back at Satan, you know, and before long he fled. Do you understand? He wiped him back with the word of God. So if Jesus did not already have the word of God that he had meditated concerning his identity, you know, I wanted to say concerning his identity in Christ. Concerning his identity because he was a pure, he was pure, he was a complete man, right? And he needed to even fast and pray, even if even though he was fully God, he needed to fast and pray to even get attain some level of spiritual sensitivity as well. Do you get so even Jesus had to meditate on the word of God, think through and know who he was? We see him when he was very young at age seven that he was already looking through the scriptures, looking for what he said concerning him. Do you do that? Do you do that? Like do you open the Bible, not just to read it randomly, but to find out what he says concerning you? Jesus was doing that, so he knew what he said concerning him. So by the time Satan came, he fired him back. He said, Thou shalt worship the Lord your God. What was what was he saying? And him alone alone shall you worship. Satan told Jesus to worship him, believing that he was talking to a man who didn't know who he was in Christ. I want to say in Christ, who he was, right? And Jesus told him, I know who I am, I am purely man, but I've been awakened by fasting and praying, and I know that I am your God. Bow before me, Satan. And Satan fled. So you have to know who you are in Christ, all right? This was a remarkably bold appeal to be made by an accused man. Do you understand? It shows the strong consciousness and it shows the strong consciousness that Paul had of his innocence. How how confident are you, and how conscious, conscious are you of your innocence? Do you understand? Of who you are in Christ. How confident are you that you are a God on the earth? How confident are you that the Spirit of God is in you and you are one with God? How confident and how conscious, it's not just I mean, if you are very conscious, you're confident and you'll be able to work it. Consciousness is is the mother of manifestation. As long as you are conscious of it, you will see it manifested in your life. Now, the next thing that Paul says is that I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day, before God. In the Greek, it means to God. I have lived in good conscience to God. I like that because Paul leave Paul is saying that I lived in co-perception to God. Acts chapter 24, verse 16. Herein do I exercise myself to have always to have always a conscious conscience that is void of offense to God and men. So he's saying to God, my conscience, I have co-perception with God, and I have co-perception towards God. There is no time in my life that I make a mistake of thinking that God has forsaken me. Do you get that? There is no time in my life that I made a mistake of thinking that God did not hear me, or God is quiet in my case. I didn't make this Paul was such a great man. I didn't make that mistake. He said there was no time that I felt like God is not real, or maybe because of the problems I was facing, even when he was beaten, he after he, you know, after this act chapter 23, what happens? Let me give you the rest of the story so that you understand how interesting it was. So he Paul stands before the Sahendry right now, and after he makes his statement, after the high priest has slapped him, and he has apologized for uh you know speaking, you know, evil of the priest, the high priest, and all of that, then he now noticed he scanned the crowd and he noticed that there were two groups of people there, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And Paul, you know, Paul was part of them, okay? He was a Pharisee. And Paul already knowing and understanding their belief systems, he's the next thing he uttered is that see, the reason why I have been called here. Remember, Claudius was there because Claudius was a witness. He was trying to find out what's what's the reason why they are treating, why was the reason why they want this man killed? You know, he wanted to find out, and then he now exclaimed and he said, I'm only here, you know, on trial because of my testimony, the testimony of Jesus. Are you seeing? But then he now goes on and he says something else. He says that he is of the Pharisees. The moment he said that, like he took sides, he took his sides that he said he is of the Pharisees who believe in the resurrection of the dead, and that's the reason why he has been preaching Jesus. Why? Because Jesus resurrected from the dead, so he instantly said, I am a Pharisee. Because Paul was looking for a way to testify of Jesus, and he just saw the opportunity to preach the gospel, and he says, Listen, I am a Pharisee because I'm testifying that Jesus was raised from the dead. Of course, not in my exact words, right? Okay, so he says, Jesus was raised from the dead, and immediately there was an uproar. Why? Because instantly, this is a this has been like an ongoing battle between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. This is like their the core of their you know, their disagreements, you know. When they are in court, the core of that disagreement is between is about if it's it's about the resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees said there is no resurrection of the dead. If it's not about the resurrection of the dead, it's about angels. The Pharisees says that angels exist. Sadducee says angels do not exist. And the third thing that they fight about is whether there are spirits, the spirits exist. He says, Yes, angels are spirits. So spirits exist. Sad to say he said, No, no such thing. There is nothing like resurrection. There is nothing like angels. There is nothing like spirits. So Paul took their core message and he shouted. He said, There's a resurrection of the dead. Now they have forgotten about Paul. They started fighting amongst themselves, arguing. The fight was so much that it was an opera that again Claudius had to take Paul away and take him and lock him up in prison. While he was in prison, 40 this men had finished fighting and correlation and all of that. They now gathered together. 40 men decided that they were going to kill him. They were going to hide and kill Paul. And his cousin, Paul's cousin, he's not named, heard about it and he went and reported to Claudius. And Claudius immediately released Paul. And you know, they were in at night, he was secretly taken away, you know, to another place for further trial. So when Paul says, Listen, for me, I have a conscience that is void of offense towards God and man, he says, Towards God, my conscience is clear towards God. That means that the way I see God is the way God told me He is. I was reading Isaiah 45 yesterday, even today, and I love the way God starts to say that I am God and there is no order. I am the God of justice. You know, he was testifying of himself, you know. And when God says all of these things and you have a small doubt in your mind, just because you have never seen God before, you've never seen Jesus before, you've never had an encounter, you hear people talking about encounters, chasing encounters and all of that, and you have never had any before, and you think that God has not been talking to you, you've seen miracles, but you've not had an encounter before. Let me tell you something. It doesn't have to be spectacular for you to be supernatural, it can still be supernatural, and yet it was not spectacular. Do you understand? If you hear people having visions and dreams and so many things, and you've never had it before, and all that you have had was just a knowing in your knower. You know, it was just a knowing, it was just this thing that you just knew. How do you know you just knew it? You know, deep down in your belly, you knew that this was the way to go, to go. That is also supernatural, okay? It may not seem spectacular to you because you didn't hear a loud bang on your on your door, you know, or you didn't hear like you know, a swoosh of fire, or you didn't just hear a loud voice, you know, or just wind that blew you away. You know, it is still supernatural, even if it is not spectacular. Remember, I told you that the best kind of faith is the one that was blind. Jesus said it. He said, Blessed are they who believe without seeing. Do you get so you don't have to be worried, just as you're believing God, what the Bible says, take it as face value. This is who God says he says he is. This is what God says he can do, and this is what God has given you. Do you understand? So God is who he says he is, God has what he says he has, and God can do what he says he can do. You have to believe these things, like as long as you see it in the Bible, just be dogged about it. Like, that is the only support that you need, biblical support. That's all the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. Do you understand? Every other encounter is by the way. So recently, all we see Christians do is that they are chasing encounters and not even having this relationship, this knowing. In the past, when we're younger, you know, we had more of these relationships than encounters. And it was not all good because, of course, there are people who needed help, you know, incurable diseases and things like that, that they just needed the power of God, and we couldn't get them back then because we didn't know much about faith, right? But now we have more people that believe and have faith, and miracles are happening, but that doesn't mean we should neglect the core principles, the things that we're supposed to do. And it all begins with co-perception. I know that God says God is who he says he is, God can do what he says he can do, and God has what he says he has. Then you move it closer to yourself. I can do what God says I can do, I have what God says I have, and I am who God says I am, but it doesn't end there. Remember when Jesus talked about love, he said, Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. So there are three steps to it. Number one, love God. Number two, love yourself first, and then you love your neighbor. I know when you read it, love your neighbor as yourself, you immediately think that you are last. You're not last after loving God, you love yourself because then you have to love your neighbor the same way you love yourself. That means if you do not love yourself, you cannot love your neighbor right. Do you get? So, if that is the three steps, okay, concerning the love law, then you now understand that when it comes to co-perception, it's the same thing. You have to have co-perception towards God. Do you understand? Co-perception to God. There is also living in co-perception, perception to yourself. Do you understand? How does God see you? Do you understand? How does God see you? I've talked about that part. Now, the third part is what Paul says. He says, I have always had a I exercise here in do I exercise myself to always have a conscience void of offense towards God and men. He said he exercises himself. So that means number one, his conscience is void of offense towards himself. Now, his conscience is void of offense towards God, and the last part is that his conscience is void of offense towards men. Wow. Okay, so towards men. So in essence, Paul's commitment to co-perception involved not only upholding God's perspective of himself in his consciousness, but also embracing God's view of others. So he has to uphold the way God sees God sees God, right? Number one, number two, he needs to uphold the way God sees himself as Paul. And number three, he needs to uphold the way God sees others. Wow, co-perception is deep. Do you understand? You're having co-perception is that you're seeing along with God and is telling us that there's a way God sees himself. You can't go and worship God. You can't tell me that you're worshiping God and then you are killing Ram. You are killing this, you are killing them. This one. Even in the Old Testament, that God told them to kill all those animals. He looked at them and told them, All these people are doing are rubbish. Because you are filled everywhere with blood, blood stains. He says, because all these things people are doing, at the end of the day, you finish killing these animals, and then you still go and there is no justice. You are mean to the fatherless, you oppress the poor, you do all manner of nonsense. It's like, what kind of religion is this? That's what he said. He said, What is this kind of religion that the religion is after is for you to pursue justice and love God and love a chase after mercy. Do you see? He says that is the true religion. That was in the old testament where he told them. So you can imagine that even in the old testament, God had a perspective and he needed people to see his perspective from his perspective. Do you understand? That was what made made Moses a different kind of person. People knew his act, Moses knew his ways. Moses had a perspective, God's perspective. He could see from God's point of view. Do you understand? God let him in on it. And then God has let us in on it, right? From his word. And we need to just learn how to what's that word now? Cultivate it and maintain it, maintain the pictures in our minds, right? So because this approach is crucial. So your for your neighbor, love God, love yourself, love your neighbor. That means for your neighbor, let's say it's your husband, let's say it's your your wife, let's say it's your children, they are who God says they are. They have what God says they have, and they can do what God says they can do. So that means you are wrong to look at your child and say you are stupid just because they failed an examination. From that moment, you tell them, listen, son, you are not working according to the script. God says that you are perfect. This is what the script says. Right now, you are going against the script. This is not who you are. So you begin to say, you are who God says you are, you are brilliant, intelligent. You know, you maintain focus, you are focused, you are an excellent child because you have an excellent spirit. And if there is any hindrances in your life that is causing this not to come to pass, I rebuke it in the name of Jesus be gone. Out. Do you understand? If there's anybody in your house that is sick, you have to behold them the way God sees them, completely whole. Completely whole. Completely whole. You behold yourself the same way too, completely healed. When you look at yourself, even if you're in pain, you are healed completely. You have to cultivate those pictures. I cannot help you with those pictures. You have to do it yourself. What is the most pressing need in your life? Change your mind. Change the pictures in your mind. See yourself as whole. If it's difficult for you to see anything beyond it, then know that it's demonic oppression. Rebuke the devil. I pray for everyone under the sound of my voice in the name of Jesus. Anyone whose mind feels be clouded, Satan, I rebuke you. Out in the name of Jesus. Leave God's children right now in the name of Jesus. Free them in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.