The Voice of Conscience | Joyce Meyer

I'd like us to start in John chapter 17 verse 15 John 17 15 Jesus is praying his great prayer and he said I do not ask that you take them out out of the world he's praying for us I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you will keep and protect them from the evil one so God wants us to be in the world and yet protected from the evil that's in the world they are not of the world worldly can you say with me this with me this morning I am not worldly I am not World they are not of the world worldly belonging to the world just as I am not of the world sanctify them purify consecrate separate them for yourself and make them Holy by truth your word is truth now we learned last night that when we receive Christ we're made holy but then that Holiness needs to be worked out through us so people in the world can begin to see what God is like and it's done by the truth by knowing the truth of God's word now I love Verse 18 just as you sent me into the world I have also sent them into the world well how did the father send Jesus why did he send him Jesus said if you've seen me you've seen the father and I believe that when people see us anybody that's around you or around me for any period of time should without us even having to tell them begin to realize that there's something different about us that there's a flavor on our life that just makes everything better and that somehow we're we're bringing light Into Darkness we bring peace where there's turmoil we bring joy where there's sadness we lift up we encourage we don't tear down and destroy we thankful people who don't complain about something 24/7 we're different and you know honestly different places where I go there's certain people without even asking them I already know they're Believers and you should be able to tell people should know us without having to look to see if we've got a cros hanging around our neck or a bumper sticker on our car they should be able to know Us by the way we behave amen Matthew 513 you are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its taste its strength its quality how can its saltiness be restored it is not good for anything any longer but to be thrown out and trotten underfoot by men now you know that that's a pretty straightforward serious script scripture he's saying look you are the flavor in the world I like to put it like that rather than thinking about it like salt we all know that something that has no flavor the first thing you usually reach for is a salt shaker and anything that is flavorless and bland is just kind of like and so we are the that's really an interesting thought to me we are the salt of the Earth the flavor in the Earth but if salt has lost its flavor then what good is it it's no good what if you had a very Bland bowl of soup you're getting ready to eat you reach for the salt shaker and you put salt on it and it still tasted the same way if the salt had been sitting there so long that it had lost its flavor then it wouldn't do anybody any good you are the light of the world my I'm my my a city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do men light a lamp and put it under a peck measure but they put it on a lampstand and give light to all in the house let your light so shine before men that they may see your moral excellence and your praiseworthy Noble and good deeds and recognize and honor and praise and glorify your father who is in heaven somebody Shout that's it now we don't do good things to be seen of men that is not our motive our motive needs to be to Simply bring glory to God and to try to help people know how amazing that he is to try to make them believe there's hope for me there's a better life than what I have somebody show me that there's a better life than what I had you know I think often about especially when I'm talking about things like this about when I married Dave when I was a young woman in my 20s Dave I was 23 when Dave and I got married and I can honestly tell you that at that age I do not ever remember in my whole life being happy I was never happy didn't know what it felt like never had any peace didn't know what peace felt like was totally foreign to me do you know that there are people out there that that don't even have a clue what peace is they don't even know what it feels like they don't know what Joy is so they try to replace Joy with having some kind of fun and many times sell their soul to have that fun and they need us well when Dave married me I had lots of problems he didn't know how many problems I had but he had been praying for God to give him a wife and he he he said God please make it someone that needs help well you you pray that if you want to but make it someone that need I wonder how many people today who want to get married would dare to pray something like that oh no we want Mr Perfect we want him Spirit filed Walking with God ready to go in Ministry you know man of the house this and that so tall and on and on and have a great job Dave said give me somebody that needs help for the life of me I don't know why the man said that but I think he was being led by the Holy Spirit Dave was a strong Spirit-filled Christian really loved God had had a deep relationship with God and here I was I really had I received Christ when I was 9 years old so I I'd been born again as a little child but I was in the situation of being abused and my father wouldn't let us go to church and occasionally he would let me go to church with some relatives down some friends down the street mainly because he just wanted to get me out of the house on Sunday morning so he and my mother could have the house to themselves and he uh he was just mean and so even though I received Christ when I was young I never had any teaching or any training and so Dave came into my life not just as a husband but as an example to me and all those early years when I was so messed up and had such a temper Dave was just peaceful he he kind of just like had this attitude I'm going to love you if you'll let me but if you won't let me I'm going to keep loving you anyway but you're not going to make me not enjoy my life now I'd really like you to hear what I just said because some of you are dealing with unbelievers even maybe in a marriage relationship and you don't quite know how to witness to them well it's not going to it's not going to help them if you try to beat them over the head with your Bible you can play your Joyce Meer tapes very loud when they're in the house that probably won't help them either you can take my books and color under something and leave it laying on the table hoping that they'll read it maybe some of that will help you can ask them to go to church you can ask them to do things but if they won't have any of that then you still have a wide open door because really what God is asking you to do is be a consistent can we say consistent to be a consistent example by just calmly beautifully and joyfully living your little Christian Life not being religious not preaching all the time not having a body language that shows you're disgusted with all of their behavior I just remember how I just didn't get it it's like why don't you slap me or something but I tell you one of the best things that Dave did for me was he would not let me make him unhappy now I don't think you heard what I said he would not let me make him unhappy and and people don't know what to do with you the devil doesn't even know what to do with you when they throw their back shot to make you miserable and you forgive them you stay peaceful and I think this is a teaching that really needs to brought out be brought out more fully and I'm I'm working on some things in my heart now that when when you have pain from people the best response you can give is to just continue to be who you are don't let the people change you you stay the same and your consistent witness will ultimately change them I had never never seen consistency and Dave was consistent I didn't know what peace was and Dave was peaceful and finally I thought I got to have that and I was already a Christian I went to church with Dave all the time but because I didn't have the power of God functioning in my life like I needed to I didn't know how to overcome my problems and Dave's example to me was extremely important I mean the Bible even speaks about women and and if your husband is an unbeliever then you know he may be saved by your Godly life just you know don't preach to him all the time and be a nag just live your Godly life I can see you're happy about that now two scriptures we're going to look at real quick here we'll get say a little bit more about them later but you have to see both of these we're going to talk this morning about the voice of conscience because how can we get out in the world and be the right example to people without the Holy Spirit working in our lives all the time to let us know the moment that we start to do something that's displeasing to God we have no way really now we know the word but you know as much as I know the word I'm still able to get mad and you know if I'm out in public and somebody's rude to me the first thing that rises Up In Me Is but then I know in my conscience it's not right settle down be stable we have to learn to obey our conscience another way of saying it is to obey the Holy Spirit the leading of the Holy Spirit but our conscience is enlightened by the Holy Spirit to let us know when we're doing something right and when we're doing something wrong we must learn and I want this to be a keynote of this message today at all times to follow peace if you don't have peace about what you're doing or the way you're behaving then just don't do it okay I better say that again if you don't have peace about what you're doing or the way you're behaving and this is this is for you don't worry about what everybody else is doing if you don't have peace about what you're doing you don't even need to judge them what we need to do is just make sure at all times that we maintain peace and we talked last night about Holiness and I'm going to show you that peace is really the pathway to holiness as long as we stay peaceful we are on our way to letting that Holiness that God has placed in US be worked out so we're going to look at some more scriptures here so acts 231 the Apostle Paul then Paul gazing earnestly at the Council of Sanhedrin said Brethren I have lived before God doing my duty with a perfectly good conscience until this very day I love that how powerful is that people judge you and criticize you to be able to say or to think my conscience is clear before God I have a clear conscience you can judge me you can criticize me you can accuse me but if I have a clear conscience before God I've got something that nobody can take away from me come on acts 24:16 I love this scripture that we're coming to right here therefore I always exercise and discipline myself this doesn't just happen automatically you're going to have to discipline yourself and and do some exercise in this area mortifying my body deadening my carnal affections bodily appetites and worldly desires I know that doesn't sound too exciting but it's worth it in the end endeavoring in all respects to have a clear unshaken blameless conscience void of offense toward God and toward man wow wow wow wow wow wow I love that scripture so what Paul is saying is the minute that I feel that I've offended God I I I set things right because I got to have a clear conscience if I feel that I've done anything to offend a person if I've hurt someone's feelings if I've mistreated them if I've talked to them in a way that I shouldn't have talked to them if I haven't been there for them when I should have been if I've disappointed them if I haven't kept my word if I've let them down if I've been rude I don't just blow it off and say well I'm busy or I had a rough day today no he said I make it right and you know how you make it right you go humble yourself and you say I should not have acted that way I'm sorry please forgive me I should not have acted that way I'm sorry please forgive me I should not have acted that way I am sorry please forgive me without excuse not making any excuses just simply look I'm sorry I should not have acted that way please forgive me it's amazing what those few words will do to set you at peace again in your conscience and even if the person wants to be obnoxious and not forgive you or start some kind of an argument with you your conscience is clear because you've done the part that God asked you to do I'm not responsible to make them be at peace with me but I'm responsible to be at peace with them now the function of conscience is to correct and reprimand us so as to render us uneasy when we do something that pleases God I love that that uneasy this is what div Vine says it's it renders us uneasy in other words you know you're not going to hear a voice screaming at you no you just get a little bit uncomfortable this is why we need to learn how to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit it it just it saddens me when I think about all the years that I Mis mistreated people and didn't even know I was doing it I can't do that now the closer you walk with God the more you know his word it becomes a light in your life and it shows up any darkness and I pray even again this morning God if there's any darkness in Me Shine your light on it please God don't just let me do things that are stupid and not even know that I'm doing it we need to pray for ourselves we don't need to just pray to get everything we want all the time we need to pray that God will work in us that God will change us that he will put his finger on things in our life just begin to pray God I want to be what you want me to be maybe you've started your walk with God and you've had a lot of problems in your life and you've been asking him to fix all these problems and meet all these needs well hey you know what we all start that way but I can't let you finish that way if I'm going to be your teacher I cannot let you finish that way I have to tell you that it's time for a turnaround here it's time to start saying okay God I'm not going to worry about what everybody else is doing I'm not even going to worry about getting everything that I want I want my I want things to be right with me and you I want to grow I want to be everything that you want me to be I even say to God tie me to the altar if you have to but don't let me get away from you until you've accomplished everything in me that you want to do I'd like it to be easy but it's not if it's not please don't let me run it's easy to run away very easy to run away when things get uncomfortable and we do it in many different ways the vines's Greek dictionary goes on to say that conscience is is a knowing or to know a witness born to one's conduct by conscience The Faculty by which we apprehend the will of God and that which is designed to govern Our Lives the process of that which distinguishes what it considers morally good or bad and prompting us to do the good and avoid the bad in other words if I'm doing something that is wrong my conscience will not approve of it until I decide to stop doing it and start doing the right thing so now now here's the bottom line a lot of people and even a lot of Christians walk around with this lowlevel misery on the inside of them all the time I don't know why I I've lost my joy I don't know why I don't have any Joy I don't know what's wrong would you pray for me sister could you lay hands on me I've lost my I don't know what it is I just don't feel right well why don't you stop for just a minute and ask God have I done something to offend you I mean that's the first place I would go know not think well there must be some evil spirit Ling around here that's disturbing me amen people walk around with this low-level uneasiness simply because to be honest so many Christians and I'm not saying it's you but so many Christians just constantly do things that their conscience disapproves of let me tell you something please get this if you don't get anything else your conscience is a great gift that God has given you and it can be your very best friend it can be the one thing that will keep you out of trouble now but in order to talk about this and be balanced we have to talk about what is a healthy conscience what happens if you have an overactive conscience then you're going to feel guilty about things that there's really nothing wrong with or what happens if you have a seared or a hardened conscience then you're going to be able to do things that should bother you that don't so we don't come into this thing totally healthy and this is why in some ways this is a little challenging subject to teach on because I know full well that some of you have an overactive conscience and you feel guilty about absolutely everything I was like that I grew up in fear my father was angry most of the time and nobody ever really knew about what and there was a lot of rules a lot of even unspoken rules that we had to follow to keep him okay and you never knew exactly what day the rules were going to change so it was a very tense atmosphere not only that because he was sexually abusing me I had a shame-based image and nature of myself I felt guilty and I was always afraid that I was going to get in trouble so when I came into a full-blown relationship with God where I really started wanting to please him I said this last week I don't think I've ever said this but the last conference I that I said this I don't think that I was as miserable in my sin before I started seriously trying to follow God as I was after I started seriously trying to follow God because before then I just went to church and thought everybody else was a problem well you need to treat me better well you need to do this and you need to do that it was never about me it had nothing to do with me oh man but when the light of God started shining in my Dark Soul when I really started studying this and not just hearing one verse read or a couple of verses read on a Sunday and a 15 or 10 minute sermon let me tell you something you can't live on snacks they ain't going to get it you're not you're not going to survive on snacks we got to have full meaty meals you can't live on desert either and one of the things that's kind of frightening today is the Bible even says that in the last days people will Heap unto themselves teacher after teacher after teacher finding people that will tell them what they want to hear and that's possible to do today if you don't want to hear straightforward teaching like this you can avoid me on TV you don't have to come to my conferences you can flip around and find somebody that just going to tell you what you want to hear all the time but you won't grow that way we need it all we need the encouragement but we also need the little Holy Ghost spankings from time to time to kind of help us grow up

Channel: Joyce Meyer Ministries

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Keywords: joyce meyer, joyce meyer ministries, joyce meyer youtube, joyce meyer sermons, joyce meyer teaching, joyce meyer preaching, joycemeyerministries, joyce meyer 2021, joyce meyer sermons 2021, enjoying everyday life, joyce meyer enjoying everyday life

Id: PIRBP0MnMlE

Length: 24min 12sec (1452 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2013