Tag Archives: deceived

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Bible Study, ,

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

“Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with his instructor. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good for, at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those belonging to the family of believers.” Galatians 6:6-10.

Have you ever heard this saying? “A fool is a person who keeps on doing the same thing but expects a different outcome.” It’s the same as saying that a fool is someone who sows weeds and expects to reap wheat. Just as God has laws in the natural world that never alter, so the laws of the spiritual dimension are equally stable.

What was Paul talking about here? The law of the harvest applies at every level, but Paul had something particular in mind when he penned these words. In the Mosaic Covenant, God taught His people how to apportion their crops, not by fixed amounts but by percentage. Everything belongs to God. He had the right to tell His people how to use their resources. 

At the end of each harvest, wheat, barley and whatever else they grew, and the increase of their flocks and herds, they were to give away approximately 20% and keep 80% for their own use. They had a responsibility to care for others as well as themselves and their families; their high priest; the priests and Levites; their own future, and the poor, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner, out of the 20% they set aside for this purpose.

Although the New Testament does not repeat these instructions, the principles are still the same and still found in the new covenant. Our responsibilities to other people have not changed. Many believers argue that we are now under grace, not under the law. That may be so, but everyone, including those for whom we are responsible, still has to live. God has never improved on His economic policy because it’s not about law; it’s about wisdom.

Left to ourselves because we argue that we are no longer under the law, we usually give less and less because of our innate reluctance to part with our money. We argue that we are being led by the Spirit. But what spirit? The old greedy nature still lurks deep inside us. We think that what we earn and what we own is ours. No, it is not. We are stewards of God’s property which we have on loan. We are accountable to Him for how we use it. When we use it for ourselves instead of obeying Him, we must not be surprised if our resources run out. Why should God give us more when we are unfaithful to Him with what we have?

In this passage, Paul talked about money and possessions – as simple as that! The law of the harvest applies to our money as much as it does to anything else. He urged the Galatians to take care of those who taught them the word. They have as much right to financial remuneration as those who work to earn a living. Whatever they sowed, they would reap. Paul talked about “sowing to the flesh” in the context of money.

According the Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”, we cannot make a fool of God. He established the law of the harvest and it has never been changed. When we are selfish and greedy with the resources God has entrusted to us, we will reap destruction because that is the pre-determined harvest of the “flesh”. Conversely, if we sow generosity, we will reap eternal life which is the outcome of righteousness.

“Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” 12 Corinthians 9:10, 11.

There will always be a harvest of more of what you have sown because the law of the harvest never changes, Just as selfishness will multiply in your life if you are selfish, so generosity will break the cycle of greed in you and set you on the road to real prosperity – not just in financial sufficiency but in the growth of your character to become more like Jesus.

Like everything else in life, generosity is a partnership with God. He will ensure that we are never in need when we obey Him by taking care of the needs of others.

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:31-33.  

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Word’s Most Heinous Crime!

Bible Study, , ,

THE WORLD’S MOST HEINOUS CRIME!

“‘I admit that I didn’t always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw the believers — I had no idea they were God’s people — into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.'” Acts 9-11 (The Message).

What a list of accomplishments to put on your CV, Paul! What a confession! Religious extremist! Fanatic! Murderer! Terrorist! Talk about a religious war! Paul could have been fighting the cause of any one of the world’s most prominent religions today. They all have the same intention — get rid of believers in Jesus; 165,000 Christians murdered every year. Why? What have they done? Put their faith in the Son of God who was raised from the dead? What kind of a crime is that? Why did he do it?

We have only two options — believe in the God who created us in His image or believe in a god we created in our image. How do we know the difference? By our fruit. We always become like the god we worship. If we worship a god we, or someone else, has created in our image, we reveal the nature of that god by our disposition and behaviour.

Paul thought that he was fighting for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but this God revealed Himself as gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faitfulness, full of mercy and forgiving sin (Exodus34:6). Does that look like the God he was representing in his murderous hatred of believers?

What was Paul’s problem? He was deceived. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV). There was nothing wrong with his zeal but everything wrong with what he believed.

Why did God not take him out for his actions against His people? He deserved to die there and then, didn’t he? I suspect that God saw beyond his fanatical persecution of Christians to a passionate desire to serve and please the God he thought he knew. That he went about it the wrong way was not the issue. That could be corrected. That he had a heart for God was a characteristic that could be honed into a loyal and faithful son of God and worshipper of Jesus.

A story in the Old Testament clearly illustrates this principle. Isaac, Abraham’s son, had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, it seems, was the more pleasant character. He was an outdoor man, a good hunter and a daddy’s boy. His brother, Jacob, like his name meaning “deceiver”, was a scheming, lying, twisted namby-pamby mommy’s boy.

But Esau had an inborn fault — he had no interest in spiritual things. He gave away his right as the firstborn just to fill his belly on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, Jacob coveted his brother’s position as the firstborn and the privileges and advantages that came with it. Through lies and deception he stole his brother’s birthright and the father’s blessing. For a good part of his life he lived by deceiving and being deceived.

But, from God’s perspective, Jacob’s thirst for spiritual realities was a characteristic He could work with, even though he went about it the wrong way. God moved him, slowly but surely, into the place where he was cornered, wanting to go home, but desperately afraid of Esau and the repercussions of his deception. In an all-night struggle with the Angel of the Lord, Jacob surrendered and he was changed, from “deceiver” to “prince with God.” The same zeal that drove him to lie and steal, now drove him to love and obey God.

God is looking for those who yearn for Him, though they may not know it. He will make Himself known to anyone who seeks Him with all his heart.

What’s Behind the Appearance?

Christian Life, ,

WHAT’S BEHIND THE APPEARANCE?

“When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard Him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing Him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them, ‘You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others but God knows what’s behind the appearance.'” Luke 16:14,15 (The Message).

What a powerful hold deception has over people’s minds! It is Satan’s potent and elusive weapon, blinding us to the most simple and obvious truths. If we would just stop and think logically for a moment, we would recognise how easily we have been duped.

In this case, the Pharisees, who loved money and power and paid any price to get it, made two serious errors; they thought that by outwardly acting holy, they could cover up their greedy hearts, and secondly, they thought that they could fool God. Had they only stopped to think, they would have realised how wrong they were.

Jesus’ words should have brought them back to reality with a bump, but it only drove them deeper into their hardened attitude. That’s the other part of Satan’s arsenal that is so difficult to overcome. He trades on human pride to keep his deception in place. Once a person has made his erroneous beliefs public by acting on them, he will not easily back down and admit that he is wrong.

This stubborn attitude disqualifies a person from access to the kingdom of God. Truth and humility are the two requirements for understanding and entering into the realm of God’s rule. They are like the guiding lights that must be lined up to give a ship safe entry into the harbour. Truth displaces the lies that cause us to veer off course, and humility softens our hearts to believe and receive the truth.

Jesus gave us clear directions for getting free from the lies that ensnare us and drive us into misery, pain and loss, “To the Jews who believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” John 8:32 (NIV). The truth in and of itself cannot set us free. It must first be believed and internalised to become effective in breaking the bondage of deception.

There is a process in moving from deception to truth. Sometimes it happens is a blinding flash of understanding and at other times it follows a period of careful investigation and growing conviction.

For the disciples, barring Judas Iscariot, it was a combination of the two. They followed, watched and listened to Jesus for three years and then came His death and resurrection. His appearance to them was the last piece of the puzzle. From that moment nothing could budge them from the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Until then they still wobbled and tottered in their faith, but the presence of the risen Jesus cancelled all their doubts and misunderstandings.

This is the moment of revelation and transformation. It happened to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus; it has happened to millions of people across two thousand years but it never happened to the Pharisees because they refused to examine the evidence. They chose lies over truth and became part of the tragedy of those who never fulfil their God-given potential.

If you examine the evidence with a humble desire to know the truth, there will come for you the dazzling moment of conviction and the life-changing experience of faith, giving you entry and access into the realm of God passionate love and unfailing goodness. All His resources will be yours, you will find the meaning and purpose of your existence and your eternal future will be secure, based on the infallible truth of God’s word.

But is all comes back to the same thing. You choose….

Religious Frauds!

Christian Life, , , ,

RELIGIOUS FRAUDS

“‘I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable but basics are required.'” Luke 11:42 (The Message).

Jesus’ perspective on what is important to God is very different from ours. Every man-made religion considers what we do more important than what we are. The gods of human imagination always require rule-keeping and rituals as the way to gain the god’s favour and get what we want.

Does it really matter who or what we worship as long as we worship something? It is in the basic nature of humans to worship and to pray. We are incomplete without allegiance to a higher power. To many people, sincerity is the most important ingredient in our worship. “It doesn’t matter who you worship, as long as you are sincere.” they say.

This is flawed thinking because every action in life has consequences. It does matter who or what we worship because we become like the thing we worship. What we embrace as the source of our life we embrace as what we value and where we end.

The tragedy about the gods of human imagination is that they inevitably reflect the worst of human nature; cruel, heartless, demanding, unpredictable and unstable. Worst of all is that they do not exist but are the deception of demons to entice us to worship Satan.

Whether people bow down to idols of wood or stone or some invisible ‘god’ some human being told them to worship, the outcome is the same – behaviour that says one thing but hearts that are still rotten to the core.

What is God’s remedy for this terrible dead end? A heart transplant. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you…” Ezekiel 36:26,27a (NIV). Can God make good on His word? Yes! The evidence of a changed heart is a changed disposition.

Jesus’ quarrel with the Pharisees was that their religion was a cover-up for greed and wickedness and the people thought they were ‘holy’! They lived double lives, hypocrites playing to the crowd, but underneath they were worse than the tax-collectors, prostitutes and ‘sinners’ whom they despised.

Jesus was more comfortable with the outcasts because they had no reason to pretend. God cannot do anything for ‘holy’ people, those whose religious cloak keeps Him out. He is near to those who know they cannot pretend with Him. He can change the hearts of those who know their need but He can do nothing for those who think they are okay. No matter what the barrier is between us and the only true God, only one thing will give us access to Him – to admit that we were deceived and to believe what He says.