Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Deceitfulness

A pretty sober morning.

News - oh not about the stockmarket (again) - but this time, the news that a good man, who has done so much for so many, has acted in a way that broke his lifelong commitment to his wife.

Adultery.....becoming sexually intimate with someone you are not married to.

The question often rings after the fact....
"How could this happen?"
"How could a person like this end up doing something like this?"

One answer came to me: deceitfulness.

Deceitfulness is by definition - the intention to deceive, to be misleading.

And a verse from the Bible came to my mind immediately with this word: "See to it, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourge one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." Hebrews 3:12-13.

Thoughts from these words:

1. Sin by its very nature is deceiving. In other words it is slippery, misleading - what seems to be the case ("I'll be ok" "No one will be hurt" "It's just a little thing anyway") before the act of sin, most often is not the case on the other side. ("I'm not ok." "People are getting hurt.""It is a whole lot bigger than I thought.") Sin has a magnetic pull to it...and is full of faulty logic. Beware its deceitfulness.

2. It seems to me that these verses are warning us all. We all can be candidates for deception - whether 60 or 20....whether a long-term follower of Jesus or brand new....and whatever gender, occupation or situation we find ourselves in.

3. What is at stake is this: the enemy of our souls (satan) getting us to completely turn away from God. That is always the ultimate contest that is afoot in the entire universe.

4. We have a responsibility to "encourage one another" to stand strong and avoid the slippery slope. How? Here are some ideas:
i. we should all be asking our friends occasional and penetrating questions - like, *"are you walking in purity?" - *"are you staying away from stuff that is tempting?" *"how close are you walking with God right now? and *"how do you measure that?
ii. learn to be "encouraging" to those in your life right now...speak in truth and in faith. Speak hope to them. Let your words convey strength to your friends. We are all in this battle and we all need one another.
iii. keep a short account with God - a daily inventory-taking and time in prayer with Him. Ask God to give you more of his main weapon against deceitfulness - it is called discernment...and the Bible is its main standard of evaluation.

Aren't you glad we get to follow Jesus? "No deceit was found in his mouth." I Peter 2:22.

Selah.

Dave

1 comment:

Galen said...

Adultery became an epidemic in the Evangelical Free Church we left. There was a correlation, I believe, to a shift in the worship philosophy. The goal of declaring the merits and greatness of Christ had been supplanted by the tacit GOAL of achieving a certain emotional state. Feeling good is okay, but it can't be the goal of worship. By putting an eros-oriented experience at the center of our religious lives, the cart gets in front of the horse in other areas of our lives too, like ripples radiating from the stone-plunge. Our old, sensual self has a wayward nature and is of course deceitful. Good feelings suggest everything is alright, but they aren't fixed to anything but self. We need charity, whether accompanied by "good vibrations" or not, because it is fixed to the Truth, and will keep us on course.