Our Deceitful Hearts

"All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things."  - Robert Southey

Have you ever heard someone say, "He/She is living a lie?" What this is telling us, is that when someone is "living a lie" they are in essence presenting a false representation of themselves to the world. When one pretends to be something they aren't, they are being deceitful and untruthful. 

The world in which we live is chock-full of lies. This provides a very fertile environment for deceit, and it wastes no time in taking root. Unfortunately, our own hearts provide an excellent location for "self-deception" to grow and prosper as it pertains to our relationship with God. And grow and prosper it does!

The problem with self-deceit is that it can blind us to God's truth. The apostle James warned against this exact thing. He saw this as an inappropriate response to truth (James 1:22); the truth being that God's Word is meant to change us (Psalm 119:11; John 17:17).

There are those who consider themselves religious because they accumulate a lot truth by reading scripture, listening to sermons, etc. They have a false sense of what true religion is about. I'm not saying that it's pointless to do these things, but if you are not being changed by any of it, then you are "living a lie."

One kind of self-deception is a belief that our words don't matter. This is a form of self-decieived (worthless) relgion (James 1:26). Contrarily, by successfully avoiding self-deception we are engaging in true (pure and faithful) religion (James 1:27). God favors our faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6). 

Many Christians are "living a lie" when it comes to religion, and the worst part is that they are fully cognizant of this. Self-deception can be induced by human pride and arrogance. It can be very destructive to our religious lives if it goes unchecked. The by-product of self-deceived religion is an "empty" religion, which is undesirable to God. 

Keeping the Word in our hearts, exemplifying the Word, and persevering in the Word develops character and counteracts self-delusion. Our outward appearance and inward spiritual life can then be reflected in true proportionality of our love for both God, and His truth.

Augustine of Hippo summed this up rather nicely when he said, "Where I found truth, there found I my God, who is the truth itself."  

Scripture: Psalm 101:7; Psalm 120:2; Jeremiah 17:9; 1 Peter 3:10; Jeremiah 9:6  

Prayer: Dear Jesus, thank You for the path You provided me when You laid down Your life in my place. Sanctify me by the truth, Lord; Your Word is truth.  Amen

May your day be blessed!

Charlene