{"id":163,"date":"2013-11-23T01:36:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T01:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=163"},"modified":"2013-11-23T01:36:13","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T01:36:13","slug":"a-convicting-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"A Convicting Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a singer. Not the kind that gets up in front of everyone on the stage. I sing as I go about my day. Often I get the words wrong or only remember parts of them. More often I infect others with the tunes rolling through my head. Here is one from today.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What&#8217;s going on inside of me? I despise my own behavior. This only serves to confirm my suspicion that I&#8217;m still a man in need of a savior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">These famous words from <em>DC Talk<\/em> were resonating in my mind today. The good news is that I do not despise myself. I despise my behavior. This is not self-loathing. This is conscience&#8211;Spirit led recognition of right and wrong&#8211;from the least to the greatest of things. I&#8217;m further encouraged by the recognition within me that my Savior is still alive, active and available. He does not fail me and even if no one else can see those dirty little secrets inside of me, he does and loves me anyway. Further, as long as I continue in this recognition He is renewing me, polishing and shaping me in a way that glorifies Him, blesses others and lays up treasure for me in Heaven.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Now, I must apply this same recognition to my brother or sister who offends me and whose dirty little secrets leak out so that I can see them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So, as I accept Christ&#8217;s conviction and forgiveness for myself and others, I hear another famous line reminding me to persevere.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">No turning back. No turning back.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a singer. Not the kind that gets up in front of everyone on the stage. I sing as I go about my day. Often I get the words wrong or only remember parts of them. More often I infect others with the tunes rolling through my head. Here is one from today. What&#8217;s going [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}