Momentum For Monday, August 26th 2024
“‘The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?’” (Jeremiah 17:9)
There's a wonderful woman God has blessed me with in my life. She is my best friend’s mother and I’ve known her for years. I have watched her grow and have served alongside her in the Philippines. She often talks about how she asks God to "gently correct” her. I love that thought. Often times I want to ask God to set me straight but I'm afraid how that will unfold. So, with her sage example, I often pray that same idea.
The truth is, we lie to ourselves. We do it and don't realize it. We do it and actually do realize it, but are putting off the enevitable. We lie out of fear. We lie out of shame. It can happen so easily living amongst chaos in the world as it is, but the fact of the matter is that it happens.
Satan is the father of lies. The more we avoid things and try not to address the deception in ourselves, the more we conform to this world (and wrap ourselves in deeper pits of problems}. It takes courage and trust to know that God loves us to bring us in the light of truth and out of deception.
And don't think for a second that church attendance and sermons will equate walking in truth. It supplements it, but it takes intimacy and honesty with God to embrace truth. The unfortunate reality is that churches are filled with people that have one foot in deception and one foot in the pew.
I understand that this may not seem encouraging or comforting, but I had to give you an understanding of what's at stake. Freedom is trusting that God wants what is best for us, even if he has to gently correct us. Staying in the same cycles of lies and destruction has a price. Great thing is, Jesus already paid it.
This week, take a moment (or two). Ask God to gently correct you or show you the areas of your life shrouded in deception. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help comfort you into the truth.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
(John 16:13)