Knowing Our Limitations

In the movie, Magnum Force (1973), actor Clint Eastwood portrays detective Harry Callahan — an independent out-of-the-box thinker in the local police force. His superior, Lieutenant Briggs, doesn't like his strong arm methods.

In one of the scenes, Harry tells Briggs, that "A man's got to know his limitations."

Similarly, God has built into us a moral limitation on the soul called a "conscience." It sends out an alarm whenever we go beyond what is good for us. However, if the conscience is not spiritually trained, it doesn't stop us from going too far.

Additionally, the conscience can be deadened when we violate it repeatedly (1 Timothy 4:1-2; cf. Ephesians 4:17-19), and it can be programmed with wrong information so that we may feel guilty when no real guilt exists, or we may be guilty and not feel it.

We must learn the moral limits God places on us for our own good and then choose to live within them (Deuteronomy 6:24-25; Deuteronomy 7:9-24).

By reading God's Word and trusting it to teach us, our conscience becomes attuned to God's standard of right and wrong (Psalm 119:11; cf. Psalm 37:30-31).

This greatly helps us to know our limitations that God has placed upon us, and thus experience the true freedom and joy that living within them brings (Romans 6:16-18).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets