Being Conscious of Your Conscience (Part 3 of 3)

Even after two weeks discussing what the conscience is and how it works, some of you may still not know why understanding your conscience is important. To conclude my series on the conscious, I'll address this issue and how to apply what I've been talking about the past two weeks.

Now, Why Does It Matter?

You might say, “So what?” Who cares? Here’s why it matters how you live. IT’S JUST YOUR LIFE.

You’re either going to be happy in life or you’re not. MOST PEOPLE I KNOW AREN’T VERY HAPPY IN LIFE. They lost the battle of the soul--- they didn’t obey their conscience when they were your age...

Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old & no longer enjoy living.”

The bottom line: There are only two sides to the coin of life: Joy and Joyless. You’ll be one or the other. Joy comes from obedience to God (1 Timothy 6:6). Joylessness comes from disobedience (Psalm 32:1). Which one you’ll be depends on whether or not you obey your conscience.

Let me close with a story that shows how important this is...

Earlier I said that the conscience is your soul’s automatic warning system. Planes have automatic warning systems too.

In 1984 a jet crashed for no apparent reason. The plane was flying in the dark and the pilot was unable to see. That meant he had no sense of where he was and couldn’t get his bearings. But that shouldn’t have mattered, because planes fly in darkness all the time. That’s why they have devices that tell them their altitude: so they don’t fly too low or in the wrong direction.

During the night, air controllers lost contact with the pilot and it was later discovered that the plane had crashed. During the investigation, the cockpit voice recorder was found, and officials made an eerie discovery:

On the recording, they could hear the computerized voice of the airplane, warning him, saying: “Pull Up, Warning... Pull Up.” You see, the pilot was flying too low.

But the pilot, didn’t listen to the voice of warning; he thought the gauges were malfunctioning. On the tape, the pilot is heard several times telling the computer to “Shut up.” Finally, the pilot got tired of listening to the warning and just turned it off.

Minutes later the plane crashed. Everyone died.

What’s the point?

The point is that just like a plane has a warning system that is designed to keep passengers safe, the soul has a warning system designed to keep us safe spiritually, and that system is called the conscience.

But many times, we get tired of listening to our consciences, so we don’t. We tell them to shut up and try to turn them off.

Here’s my challenge: Be conscious of your conscience. It’s something God gave to help you, not to hassle you..