When I lived in Central Asia, among Muslim people, I remember thinking about the many differences between us regarding our views of God. I understood they feared God as the Judge of man’s eternal destiny based on earthly deeds. Their image of a Creator, powerful yet uninvolved in daily life with his creation was also sad and fatalistic.

So I wondered why the commitment to prayer daily and during Ramadan? Do they believe God actually knows them, wants to hear their hearts’ cries? Do they know any real direction for their lives in their soul, where emotions (heart) and conscience reside?

What I tried to explain to Muslim friends, indeed anyone that doesn’t know God, is that we are created with a soul, a spirit, a supernatural element that craves spiritual connection. It is a human spirit only with personality traits and wonderful uniqueness until it becomes aligned with God’s Holy Spirit. 

This is the “born again” experience, as it was designed from the beginning, and now our spirit, our conscience is fully alive, knowing God. Previously our conscience was only shaped by our upbringing and environment, now it is transforming through the amazing invasion of the righteous Counselor, the Holy Spirit. With perfect alignment to God’s Word, both in the life of Jesus and the Bible itself, we can know God and know how to live righteous lives. Cooperation with the knower is still key. We can override, lose touch, or drown out the conscience’s voice. 

Because the Spirit has sealed us into God’s family, we can be fully known without fear of rejection. We can confess transgressions, reveal resistance to obey, weep over failures, complain about ill treatment and seemingly unanswered prayers, knowing that God will not stop loving us. 

When our knower is awakened by the Holy Spirit through Christ’s saving grace that we embrace as truth, we can live like Paul in Acts 23:1 with a “perfectly good conscience before God.” Our hearts and souls confirm we are forgiven, known and accepted into God’s eternal family (Rom 2:15).