subject: My Maturity In The Lord [print this page] I went in a jewelry store and man, you know when those lights are on jewelry, man, oh man, you never saw anything sparkle like that does. I no more needed what I bought than a man in the moon but I thought: I just deserve it. So, I took it home and it wasn't nearly as sparkly in my house. I got to looking at it and I thought: you know what? The money that I paid for this, I don't even know that I like it all that much now that I have it home. Then I thought: what am I going to do? I didn't want to be embarrassed because the person I bought it from happened to be a friend of mine and somebody who really admires my "spirituality" and my ability to hear from God and my maturity in the Lord.
So now I'm going to have to go back to this person and say: you know what? I just missed God. I bought this thing in emotions. Would you do me a favor and take it back because I really don't even need it. I'm not even sure I like it now. That's embarrassing, isn't it? But you know what? It will help you to embarrass yourself once in awhile. Maybe it will help you to remember to think the next time before you do it. I'm preaching better than you're acting like I am. Paul did everything he could to make right choices so he did not have to go through the guilty conscience cycle. Some people go through this cycle so much, they don't feel right unless they feel wrong.
You no more than crawl out of one hole than you get right back in another one, and boy, did I live like that for years. Joyce Meyer says that one of the best ways to avoid a guilty conscience is choose to do what's right to start with. Choose to do what's right to start with because if you don't, understand this, you will not get by with it. If you are a born-again Christian and you choose to do something that you know is wrong when you choose to do it, you will not get by with it. What I mean by that is the Holy Ghost in you is going to convict you, convict you, convict you, convict you, convict you. I'll tell you what will happen next: if you take his conviction, you go ahead and repent and you get it right, then well and good. But if you don't follow the conviction that you're feeling and make it right the next thing that happens is the devil takes over and now he condemns you.
