The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
We’re in a mess – a mess that carries major implications.
For as much as we don’t like to hear it, we are deceivers by nature and have been ever since that dreadful day in the Garden. Just like Satan deceived Eve, we deceive ourselves when we reject God’s truth and make up our own “reality” to live by. And we experience the same consequences – isolation from God, suffering, and death.
For example, our heart deceives us regarding sin. God’s truth says we pay dearly for sin. Yet, when tempted, we tell ourselves that this indulgence will be fun, thrilling, liberating… and that we owe it to ourselves to “live a little.” Soon enough we realize whatever pleasure we got out of it was temporary. Then comes the bondage of shame, bitterness, and regret that sometimes lasts a lifetime.
Our heart deceives us regarding salvation and eternal life. We think our “righteousness” – going to church, giving to charity, and generally being a nice person – will get us to heaven. Yet God says the best we got is nothing more than a pile of filthy rags.
We deceive ourselves, but we cannot deceive God. He knows. He knows what we are made of (Ps. 103:14). God knows our secrets, our thoughts, our motives. He knows we are desperately wicked. He knows.
Yet still He loves us. And because He loves us, He provided a way out of our mess. The only fix for our destructive self-deception is the truth of the cross of Christ and His righteousness.
It’s time to stop deceiving yourself. See yourself as God sees you. Let the light of His truth dispel the deception. Plead with Him to wash your soul in the deep red blood of His Son that you might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Father God,
Even as your child, it is so easy for me to fall into a pattern of self-deception without realizing it, like the psalmist when he says, “Who can understand his errors?” The only hope I have for exposing and challenging the “acceptable” lies I tell myself is the searchlight of the truth of Your Word brought to life in me by Your Spirit. Keep me in Your Word, Father, and keep my heart open and sensitive to Your Truth.
“Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.”
(Ps. 19:12-13)
One of the greatest dangers of my self-deception is that it is not blatant. In other words, I know I’m not perfect. I would never believe that. However, I deceive myself into thinking You love and bless me because I am “good.” Forgive me, Father. Forgive me for deceiving myself into thinking that I am good, in and of myself, as “there is none good but one, that is God,” (Matt. 19:17). Fill my mind and heart with the truth that You love me infinitely and eternally, but not for my sake. It is because of Your Son alone.
“You are worthy to take the scroll, for You were slain,
and have redeemed us to God by Your blood.”
(Rev. 5:9)
If I just listen to You, I realize that all my self-deception – no matter what form it takes – leads to grief, sadness, despair. Wake me up, Lord. Dispel my self-deceptive illusions. Open my eyes to see that the path to real freedom, peace, and joy in living is only available when I embrace Your Truth and live by it.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”
(Ps. 19:14).
