Conscience (4893) suneidesis

Greek Word Studies:

Conscience (4893) (suneidesis is derived from sun/syn = with + eido = know) literally means a "knowing with", a
co-knowledge with oneself or a being of one's own witness in the sense that one's own conscience "takes the
stand" as the chief witness, testifying either to one's innocence or guilt. It describes the witness borne to one's
conduct by that faculty by which we apprehend the will of God.

Suneidesis - 30x in 29v in NAS - Acts 23:1; 24:16; Ro 2:15; 9:1; 13:5; 1Co. 8:7, 10, 12; 10:25, 27, 28; 2Co. 1:12;
4:2; 5:11; 1Ti 1:5, 19; 3:9; 4:2; 2Ti 1:3; Titus 1:15; Heb 9:9, 14; 10:2, 22; 13:18; 1Pet. 2:19; 3:16, 21. NAS =
conscience(24), conscience'(4), consciences(1), consciousness(1).

Related Resources:

Conscience R A Torrey topic

Click for more notes on conscience
Devotional on conscience by F B Meyer
Diverse Kinds of Conscience
Conscience by William Arnot in his discussion of Proverbs 28:1
Conscience: The Voice of God Within by Timothy Lin
Webster defines conscience as the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of
one’s own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.

The Greek noun suneidesis is the exact counterpart of the Latin con-science, “a knowing with,― a shared
or joint knowledge. It is our awareness of ourselves in all the relationships of life, especially ethical
relationships. We have ideas of right and wrong; and when we perceive their truth and claims on us, and will
not obey, our souls are at war with themselves and with the law of God

Suneidesis is that process of thought which distinguishes what it considers morally good or bad, commending
the good, condemning the bad, and so prompting to do the former and avoid the latter.

To have a "clear conscience" does not mean that we have never sinned or do not commit acts of sin. Rather, it
means that the underlying direction and motive of life is to obey and please God, so that acts of sin are
habitually recognized as such and faced before God (1Jn 1:9, cp David's attitude Ps 139:23 24, cp Ps
19:13-note) Spurgeon commenting on these passages in Ps 139 says...

He (David) will have God Himself search him, and search him thoroughly, till every point of his being is known,
and read, and understood; for he is sure that even by such an investigation there will be found in him no
complicity with wicked men. He challenges the fullest investigation, the innermost search: he had need be a
true man who can put himself deliberately into such a crucible. Yet we may each one desire such searching; for
it would be a terrible calamity to us for sin to remain in our hearts unknown and undiscovered.

Try me, and know my thoughts. Exercise any and every test upon me. By fire and by water let me be examined.
Read not alone the desires of my heart, but the fugitive thoughts of my head. Know with all penetrating
knowledge all that is or has been in the chambers of my mind. What a mercy that there is one being who can
know us to perfection! He is intimately at home with us. He is graciously inclined towards us, and is willing to
bend His omniscience to serve the end of our sanctification. Let us pray as David did, and let us be as honest
as he. We cannot hide our sin: salvation lies the other way, in a plain discovery of evil, and an effectual
severance from it.

And see if there be any wicked way in me. See whether there be in my heart, or in my life, any evil habit
unknown to myself (Ed: cp a "clean conscience"). If there be such an evil way, take me from it, take it from me.
No matter how dear the wrong may have become, nor how deeply prejudiced I may have been in its favour, be
pleased to deliver me therefrom altogether, effectually, and at once, that I may tolerate nothing which is
contrary to thy mind. As I hate the wicked in their way, so would I hate every wicked way in myself.

And lead me in the way everlasting. If thou hast introduced me already to the good old way, be pleased to keep
me in it, and conduct me further and further along it. It is a way which thou hast set up of old, it is based upon
everlasting principles, and it is the way in which immortal spirits will gladly run for ever and ever. There will be
no end to it world without end. It lasts for ever, and they who are in it last for ever. Conduct me into it, O Lord,
and conduct me throughout the whole length of it. By thy providence, by thy word, by thy grace, and by thy

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Spirit, lead me evermore.

Think and be careful what thou art within,

For there is sin in the desire of sin:
Think and be thankful, in a different case,
For there is grace in the desire of grace.
--John Byron, 1691-1763.

Edwards explains that a...

A "clear conscience" consists in being able to say that there is no one (God or man) whom I have knowingly
offended and not tried to make it right (either by asking forgiveness or restoration or both). ). Acts 24:16. Christ
spoke of this very issue in the Sermon on the Mount where He made it clear that our priestly service must be
done with a clear conscience to be acceptable before God. "Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and
there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your
way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift." Mt. 5:23 24 25-note. We are being
told here that a clear conscience must precede priestly service. (2 Timothy Call to Completion)

Paul wanted Timothy to have no doubt that he endured his present physical afflictions, as he had countless
others, because of his unswerving faithfulness to the Lord, not as a consequence of unfaithful, ungodly living.
So as Paul neared his death, he could testify that his conscience did not accuse or condemn him. His guilt was
forgiven, and his devotion was undivided. To continually reject God’s truth causes the conscience to
become progressively less sensitive to sin, as if covered with layers of unspiritual scar tissue. Paul’s
conscience was clear, sensitive, & responsive to its convicting voice. Click on the books below to study the NT
picture of conscience.

Conscience is like a window that let's in the light. When the window becomes soiled, the light gradually
becomes darkness. Once conscience is defiled (Titus 1:15-note), it gradually gets worse, and eventually it may
be so "seared" that it has no sensitivity at all (1Ti 4:2). Then it becomes an "evil conscience" (He 10:22-note),
one that functions just the opposite of a good conscience (1Pe 3:16-note).

J C Ryle in his comments on a woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) speaks of

The power of conscience. We read of the woman's accusers, that when they heard our Lord's appeal, "being
convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even into the last."
Wicked and hardened as they were, they felt something within which made them cowards. Fallen as human
nature is, God has taken care to leave within every man a witness that will be heard.

Conscience is a most important part of our inward man, and plays a most prominent part in our spiritual
history. It cannot save us. It never yet led any one to Christ. It is blind, and liable to be misled. It is lame and
powerless, and cannot guide us to heaven. Yet conscience is not to be despised. It is the minister's best friend,
when he stands up to rebuke sin from the pulpit. It is the mother's best friend, when she tries to restrain her
children from evil and quicken them to good. It is the teacher's best friend, when he presses home on boys and
girls their moral duties. Happy is he who never stifles his conscience, but strives to keep it tender! Still happier
is he who prays to have it enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and sprinkled with Christ's blood. (John - chapter 8)

(Ryle in "Looking Unto Jesus") We need inward peace. So long as our conscience is asleep, deadened by
indulged sin, or dulled and stupefied by incessant pursuit of the things of this world—so long can that man
get on tolerably well without peace with God. But once let conscience open its eyes, and shake itself, and rise,
and move—and it will make the stoutest child of Adam feel ill at ease. The irrepressible thought that this life is
not all—that there is a God, and a judgment, and a something after death, an undiscovered destiny from which
no traveler returns—that thought will come up at times in every man's mind, and make him long for inward
peace.

It is easy to write brave words about "eternal hope," and strew the path to the grave with flowers. Such theology
is naturally popular: the world loves to have it so. But after all, there is something deep down in the heart of
hearts of most men, which must be satisfied. The strongest evidence of God's eternal truth, is the universal
conscience of mankind. Who is there among us all, who can sit down and think over the days that are
past—school days, and college days, and days of middle life, their countless things left undone that ought to
have been done, and done that ought not to have been done—who, I say, can think over it all without shame, if
indeed he does not turn from the review with disgust and terror, and refuse to think at all? We all need peace.

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(Ryle Looking Unto Jesus!)

(Ryle in "Without Christ") Moreover, to be "without Christ" is to be without peace. Every man has a conscience
within him, which must be satisfied before he can be truly happy. So long as this conscience is asleep or half
dead, so long, no doubt, he gets along pretty well. But as soon as a man’s conscience wakes up, and he
begins to think of past sins and present failings and future judgment, at once he finds out that he needs
something to give him inward rest. But what can do it? Repenting and praying and Bible reading, and church
going, and sacrament receiving, and self–mortification may be tried, and tried in vain. They never yet took off
the burden from anyone’s conscience. And yet peace must be had!

There is only one thing can give peace to the conscience, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ sprinkled on it.
A clear understanding that Christ’s death was an actual payment of our debt to God, and that the merit of
that death is made over to man when he believes, is the grand secret of inward peace. It meets every craving of
conscience. It answers every accusation. It calms every fear. It is written "These things I have spoken unto you,
that in Me you might have peace." "He is our peace." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jn 16:33; Ep 2:14; Ro 5:1). We have peace through the blood of His cross: peace like a
deep mine—peace like an ever–flowing stream. But "without Christ" we are without peace. (Without Christ)

J C Philpot writes that there can be

there is a receiving of the gospel as the word of men into the natural CONSCIENCE; for there is a natural
conscience as well as a spiritual conscience. This is very evident from the language of the apostle when
speaking of the Gentiles–

"Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts
the meanwhile accusing or excusing one another." (Ro 2:15.)

And do we not read of those in the case of the woman taken in adultery, who were

"convicted by their own conscience, and went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even to the last." (Jn
8:9.)

The apostle also speaks of

"commending himself to every man's conscience, in the sight of God." (2Co 4:2.)

Now as he preached to thousands, he could not have done this unless there was a conscience in every man, as
well as in every good man. Scarcely anything seems to approach the work of grace so nearly as this; and yet
we see in the cases of Saul, Ahab, and Herod, that there may be the deepest convictions of conscience and yet
no saving conversion to God. Thus there is a receiving the gospel into the natural conscience, producing moral
convictions, and a work that seems at first sight to bear a striking similarity to the work of God upon the soul;
and yet the whole may be a mere imitation of grace, a movement of nature floating upon the surface of the
mind, and at times touching upon the domain of conscience, yet not springing out of the word of God as
brought with a divine power into the heart. (The Word of Men and the Word of God)

Archibald Alexander writes...

Peace of conscience is a fruit of reconciliation with God. The blood which reconciles, when sprinkled on the
conscience, produces a sweet peace which can be obtained in no other way. If the atonement of Christ satisfies
the law which condemned us, and we are assured that this atonement is accepted for us, conscience, which
before condemned, as being the echo of the law, is now pacified. (The Peace of God)

John Calvin wrote that...

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul...There is no greater torment than an evil conscience.

Timothy Lin writes that...

In the mid 1950’s near Ashville, NC, an adult male walked into the police station and openly confessed to a
murder he had committed 13 years earlier. He gave the deceased person’s name and related to the
authorities how he had murdered this person by shooting him in the back of the head with an arrow. The police

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reviewed his story from their files and found that the local coroner had ruled the deceased man’s death to
be from natural causes. However, when they dug up the dead man’s remains, they found a hole in the base
of his skull made by an arrow. The murderer was brought to justice, not by the police, but by his own
conscience....At the Children’s Hospital seven-year-old Jimmy was a constant troublemaker. One day a
weekly visitor who knew him well said to him, “Jimmy, if you are a good boy for a week, I will give you a
quarter when I come back.― A week later she again stood by Jimmy’s bed and said, “Jimmy, I am not
going to ask the nurse how you have behaved. You must tell me yourself. Do you deserve to have the
quarter?― There was a moment’s silence. Then from under the sheets came a small voice saying,
“Gimme a penny.― This illustrates that conscience speaks very clearly even in small children,
(Conscience: The Voice of God Within - {I'm not sure I fully agree with all his points - Be a Berean} - Lin has
more on conscience on page 50-54 in Genesis - Biblical Theology)

Kenneth Osbeck writes that...

The conscience has been described as the “rudder of the soul― or the believer’s “principle
within.― One of the prime responsibilities of Christian living is to keep the conscience clear as to the things of
God so that we might live worthy lives before our fellowmen. But the conscience must be continually
enlightened and developed by an exposure to God’s Word if it is to serve as a reliable guide for our lives. A
conscience that is allowed to become hardened and insensitive to sin will ultimately lead to spiritual and moral
disaster. We must allow God to develop our consciences and then our consciences are able to develop us.
(Osbeck, K. W. Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions. Kregel Publications)

I Want a Principle Within

by Charles Wesley (Play hymn)

I want a principle within of watchful, Godly fear,

A sensibility of sin, a pain to feel it near.
Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire,
To catch the wand’ring of my will and quench the Spirit’s fire.

From Thee that I no more may stray, no more Thy goodness grieve,
Grant me the filial awe, I pray, the tender conscience give.
Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make!
Awake my soul when sin is nigh and keep it still awake.

Almighty God of truth and love, to me Thy pow’r impart;

The burden from my soul remove, the hardness from my heart.
O may the least omission pain my reawakened soul,
And drive me to that grace again which makes the wounded whole.

Conscience is the judgment which we pronounce on our own conduct by putting ourselves in the place of a
bystander. (Adam Smith)

Here are a number of truisms regarding conscience all from anonymous sources...

A good conscience is a soft pillow.

A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder.

Conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as a judge.

The best tranquillizer is a clear conscience.

When a man says he has a clear conscience it often means he has a bad memory.

When a man won't listen to his conscience, it may be because he doesn't want advice from a total stranger.

When you have only one thing on your conscience, it is probably a silencer.

A guilty conscience is a hell on earth, and points to one beyond.

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A guilty conscience needs no accuser.

Quite often when a man thinks his mind is getting broader it is only his conscience stretching. (John Blanchard
- Complete Gathered Gold: A Treasury of Quotations for Christians OR Computer Version - One of the best
resources for Christian quotes which I have ever read)

John MacArthur writes that...

In 1984 an Avianca Airlines jet crashed in Spain. Investigators studying the accident made an eerie discovery.
The "black box" cockpit recorders revealed that several minutes before impact a shrill, computer-synthesized
voice from the plane's automatic warning system told the crew repeatedly in English, "Pull up! Pull up!"

The pilot, evidently thinking the system was malfunctioning, snapped, "Shut up, Gringo!" and switched the
system off. Minutes later the plane plowed into the side of a mountain. Everyone on board died.

When I saw that tragic story on the news shortly after it happened, it struck me as a perfect parable of the way
modern people treat guilt--the warning messages of their consciences.

The wisdom of our age says guilt feelings are nearly always erroneous or hurtful; therefore we should switch
them off. But is that good advice? What, after all, is the conscience--this sense of guilt we all seem to feel?

The conscience is generally seen by the modern world as a defect that robs people of their self-esteem. Far
from being a defect or a disorder, however, your ability to sense your own guilt is a tremendous gift from God.
He designed the conscience into the very framework of the human soul. It is the automatic warning system that
cries, "Pull up! Pull up!" before you crash and burn.

The conscience, Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote in the seventeenth century, is the soul reflecting upon itself.
Conscience is at the heart of what distinguishes the human creature. People, unlike animals, can contemplate
their own actions and make moral self-evaluations. That is the very function of conscience. (See John
MacArthur's full article "The Conscience Revisited")
Conscience is a dainty, delicate creature, a rare piece of workmanship of the Maker. Keep it whole without a
crack, for if there be but one hole so that it break, it will with difficulty mend again. (S. Rutherford)

The Christian can never find a “more faithful adviser, a more active accuser, a severer witness, a more
impartial judge, a sweeter comforter, or a more inexorable enemy.― (Bp. Sanderson.)

A gnawing conscience keeps the memory terribly alert. (W. E. Sangster)

Conscience in everything: — Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything. (Sterne)

Conscience is the still small voice that makes you feel still smaller. (James A. Sanaker)

Conscience makes cowards of us; but conscience makes saints and heroes too. (J. Lightfoot)

Conscience is a marvelous gift from God, the window that lets in the light of His truth. If we sin against Him
deliberately, that window becomes dirty, and not as much truth can filter through. Eventually, the window
becomes so dirty that it no longer lets in the light. The Bible calls this a defiled, seared conscience...Do you
keep a clean conscience? It is a part of your inner being that responds to God's truth. When you sin, the
window of your conscience becomes dirty and filters out truth. Avoid sin in your life and live with a clean
conscience. Every day feed yourself truth from the Word of God. (Wiersbe, W: Prayer, Praise and Promises: Ps
51:3-6)

Hurt not your conscience with any known sin. - S. Rutherford

Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that I know, and tells me what the
highest I know demands that I do.
When there is any debate, quit. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks.
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,― it begins to look more
and more necessary and less and less evil. - Sidney J. Harris
Conscience is God’s spy and man’s overseer. -John Trapp
A good conscience and a good confidence go together. -- Thomas Brooks
Conscience is a small, still voice that makes minority reports. -- Franklin P. Jones

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Conscience is also what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.
Pop used to say about the Presbyterians, 'It don't prevent them committing all the sins there are, but it keeps
them from getting any fun but of it.' - Christopher Morley
The late General Omar Bradley was more serious in commenting on conscience

"The world has achieved brilliance without conscience," he conceded. "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and
ethical infants."

On the subject of conscience Martin Luther declared before the court of the Roman Empire at Worms in 1521

"My conscience is captive to the Word of God. ... I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his
cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self."

When a person comes to faith in Christ, his conscience becomes acutely sensitive to sin. No longer as a
Christian can he sin with impunity. The story is told about an old Indian chief who was converted. Later a
missionary asked him:

"Chief, how are you doing spiritually? Are you experiencing victory over the devil?"

"It's like this," the chief replied. "I have two dogs inside me: a good dog and a bad dog. They are constantly
fighting with each other."

"Which dog wins?" asked the puzzled missionary.

"Whichever one I feed the most," retorted the wise old man. His conscience was being shaped by the
Scriptures.

Billy Graham set out the importance of a clear conscience

"To have a guilty conscience is a feeling. Psychologists may define it as a guilt complex, and may seek to
rationalize away the sense of guilt, but once it has been awakened through the application of the law of God, no
explanation will quiet the insistent voice of conscience."

C H Spurgeon spoke frequently about conscience as seen in the following quite pithy quotations...beloved if
you are contemplating sinning as you read this or are caught in the web of some sin, may the Holy Spirit of the
Living God convict you of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come, not only for your sake of your
Christian life but even more so for the sake of His name...

Conscience may tell me that something is wrong, but how wrong it is conscience itself does not know. Did any
man's conscience, unenlightened by the Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation? Did it ever lead
any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin? Did conscience ever bring a man to such self-renunciation that he
totally abhorred himself and all his works and came to Christ?

A man sees his enemy before him. By the light of his candle, he marks the insidious approach. His enemy is
seeking his life. The man puts out the candle and then exclaims, "I am now quite at peace." That is what you do.
Conscience is the candle of the Lord. It shows you your enemy. You try to put it out by saying, "Peace, peace!
Put the enemy out!" God give you grace to thrust sin out!

Conscience is like a magnetic needle, which, if once turned aside from its pole, will never cease trembling. You
can never make it still until it is permitted to return to its proper place.

I recollect the time when I thought that if I had to live on bread and water all my life and be chained in a
dungeon, I would cheerfully submit to that if I might but get rid of my sins. When sin haunted and burdened my
spirit, I am sure I would have counted the martyr's death preferable to a life under the lash of a guilty
conscience

O believe me, guilt upon the conscience is worse than the body on the rack. Even the flames of the stake may
be cheerfully endured, but the burnings of a conscience tormented by God are beyond all measure
unendurable.

This side of hell, what can be worse than the tortures of an awakened conscience?

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He was a fool who killed the watchdog because it alarmed him when thieves were breaking into his house. If
conscience upbraids you, feel its upbraiding and heed its rebuke. It is your best friend.

Give me into the power of a roaring lion, but never let me come under the power of an awakened, guilty
conscience. Shut me up in a dark dungeon, among all manner of loathsome creatures—snakes and reptiles of
all kinds—but, oh, give me not over to my own thoughts when I am consciously guilty before God!

Fire such as martyrs felt at the stake were but a plaything compared with the flames of a burning conscience.
Thunderbolts and tornadoes are nothing in force compared with the charges of a guilty conscience.

When a swarm of bees gets about a man, they are above, beneath, around, everywhere stinging, every one
stinging, until he seems to be stung in every part of his body. So, when conscience wakes up the whole hive of
our sins, we find ourselves compassed about with innumerable evils: sins at the board and sins on the bed,
sins at the task and sins in the pew, sins in the street and sins in the shop, sins on the land and sins at sea,
sins of body, soul, and spirit, sins of eye, of lip, of hand, of foot, sins everywhere. It is a horrible discovery
when it seems to a man as if sin had become as omnipresent with him as God is.

The conscience of man, when he is really quickened and awakened by the Holy Spirit, speaks the truth. It rings
the great alarm bell. And if he turns over in his bed, that great alarm bell rings out again and again, "The wrath
to come! The wrath to come! The wrath to come! "

Nothing can be more horrible, out of hell, than to have an awakened conscience but not a reconciled God—to
see sin, yet not see the Savior—to behold the deadly disease in all its loathsomeness, but not trust the good
Physician, and so to have no hope of ever being healed of our malady.

I would bear any affliction rather than be burdened with a guilty conscience.

It is a blessed thing to have a conscience that will shiver when the very ghost of a sin goes by—a conscience
that is not like our great steamships at sea that do not yield to every wave, but, like a cork on the water, goes up
and down with every ripple, sensitive in a moment to the very approach of sin. May God the Holy Spirit make us
so! This sensitiveness the Christian endeavors to have, for he knows that if he has it not, he will never be
purified from his sin.

There are thousands of people in this country who would be greatly troubled in their minds if they did not go to
church twice on Sundays. And they get comfort in this because their conscience is dead. If their conscience
were really awakened, they would understand that there is no connection between conscience and outward
forms.

THE WAY MY FOREFATHERS DID AS I CONSTANTLY REMEMBER YOU: apo progonon os adialeipton echo
(1SPAI) ten peri sou mneian: (Ro 1:9-note; 1Th 1:2,3-note; 1Th 3:10-note)

Forefathers (4269) (progonos from pros = before + ginomai = to be) (only other NT use 1Ti 5:4) is literally born
before or born earlier and thus refers to forefathers or ancestors. Paul does not explain specifically whom he
meant by forefathers, but he obviously was speaking of godly men with clear consciences who had lived in
former times.

I constantly remember you - Recall the context - Suffering in prison (2Ti 1:8-note, "parents" - 2Ti 1:16-note),
deserted by all in Asia (2Ti 1:15-note), staring death in the face (2Ti 4:6-note) and his concern extends outward
not inward. This is surely not evidence of a strong man but a Strong God, Who is faithful to strengthen us when
we are weakest (cp 2Ti 4:17-note 2Co 12:9-note, 2Co 12:10-note)

Constantly (88) (adialeiptos from a = without + dialeipo = leave an interval or gap) means unceasing,
unintermitting, continual, without intermission, incessant. This adjective is not used in a strict literal sense to
imply there was never a break in his praying.

Note that this word is similar to adialeiptos (see study) (Strong's #89)

Adialeiptos has only one other NT use

that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart (Ro 9:2-note)

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Here in 2 Timothy the context conveys the idea that Paul never omitted an occasion to pray. He "left the phone
off of the hook" so to speak and was always ready to converse with God. He heard of a need or sensed a need
and his first reflex was to pray. What a model for believers today. Oh how much more peace we would have if
we would take it first to God in prayer before we act or speak.

As you can also discern Paul is writing a very personal letter, one which unmistakably shows the personal
affection Paul had for Timothy ("beloved son" "longing to see you", etc - 2Ti 1:3, 4, 5, 6-see note 2Ti 1:3; 1:4;
1:5; 1:6; "my son" see 2Ti 2:1-note; "make every effort to come to me soon" - 2Ti 4:9-note).

Remember (3417) (mneia) means a recalling to mind = memory, recollection, remembrance.

><>><>><>

Who's Praying? - Jim Cymbala's (of the Brooklyn Tabernacle) daughter had been running from God for a long
time. Chrissy had rebelled against her family, had left home, and was living as far from God as she could. But
one night, this teenager awoke with the distinct feeling that someone was praying for her. And someone was.
The entire congregation of the church her father pastored was talking to God about her. During their weekly
prayer meeting, a member suggested they should all pray for Chrissy. Two days later, she came home. The first
question she had for her startled father was this: "Who was praying for me?" She begged forgiveness and
recommitted her life to Christ. In the apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy, he told the young first-century
pastor that he was praying for him night and day (2Ti 1:3). Timothy was facing some big challenges, so it must
have been encouraging to know that Paul was praying specifically for him. Are there some people we know who
are in bondage to sin as Chrissy was, or who are facing a challenge as Timothy was? Are we willing to spend
some concentrated time praying for them? Are we confident that God will answer? To influence others for God,
intercede with God for others.

Commit to pray and intercede—

The battle's strong and great is the need;
And this one truth can't be ignored:
Our only help comes from the Lord.
—Sper

IN MY PRAYERS NIGHT AND DAY: en tais deesesin mou nuktos kai hêmeras: (1Sa 12:23)

What an encouragement this must have been to Timothy to know that Paul was praying without ceasing for his
young disciple. Are you praying for anyone on a regular basis? Are you aware of anyone praying for you on a
regular basis? Are you praying for anyone on a regular basis?

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