“How much more will the blood of Christ... cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Hebrews 9:14
There is a deep work that Jesus accomplished on the cross. When the scripture says, ‘by His stripes we are healed’ we are healed in many ways. Most of the healing is accomplished in the places we can’t see. To name two of the many, first, our sin of separation from God is healed. God calls it reconciliation. Simply stated, it is a relationship made right by God’s grace to draw a person to Himself, enlighten that person of the presence of God, convicting the person of their sin and applying the blood of Jesus to the sin so that there is no longer a separation between God the creator and God’s creation. Reconciliation, a relationship made right.
The second healing is in the conscience. Our verse says, ‘ the blood cleanses our conscience from dead works...’ . Our conscience is that unseen part of our mind that governs our determination of good and evil, right and wrong. Before you were a Christian your only understanding of good and evil was instilled by an ungodly culture. Many had some sort of religious training or a class in college taught by a secular professor, family traditions, personal codes that resulted in ‘dead works’.
What are Dead works? They are thoughts about God, thoughts about your actions, thoughts that stir the emotion to bring guilt into your life that is not true guilt. You can say it’s false guilt. Jesus shed his blood to cleanse your conscience among other healings. How can you receive this healing? Get to know God’s thought on the thing that is causing your guilty feeling. What does the Bible say? When you find your answer in your Bible, then you know what God thinks. Now if God says you are correct and that guilt is real, then receive God’s promise in 1John 1:9, ‘If you confess your sin, God is faithful to forgive and cleanse you...’. Then turn away from what is causing the guilt. Cry out to the Holy Spirit to help you to change your thought or action and be set free.
If the scripture says, your source of guilt is false guilt, guilt that is not offensive to God, or guilt put on you from a tradition, personal code or lack of the knowledge of God, then these thoughts are ‘dead works’. Take the Word of God by faith and learn the truth about what you thought and let the truth set you free. Let the blood of Jesus take effect in your heart and mind and be set free. The blood truly will set you free. Pray!