Self-focus makes it easy to decorate our desires, feelings, and opinions with fancy justifications and elaborate excuses in order to create an outward appearance of goodness while hiding and denying the reality of the pain, confusion, and corruption that is going on deep inside of us. Three warnings systems try to alert us to our self-deception.

Our God-given conscience sounds out within us and attempts to guide us to truth, but we too often override it and eventually learn not to hear it. The Spirit of God, speaking to our heart, tries to draw us near to the living Jesus and to empower us with His active presence, yet even if we appear outwardly close to Him with religious words and a mask of righteousness, our heart can be far from Him. The Scriptures give us supernatural revelation by showing us the way that Spirit-led people learned to set aside their desires, feelings, and opinions and to experience and obey the living God instead.

Life would drastically improve both for us and for our society if we would begin to focus our heart on following the God-given warning systems rather than on satisfying our self-focused whims. To do that: 1) Continually cooperate with your conscience. 2) Be ever led by God’s Spirit. 3) Daily read the Bible with an open heart and apply it to yourself first.