Confronting Self-Deception: Embracing Truth in Faith

"Why is it when I feel like it's the right thing to do and then I do it, but then it ends up not being the right thing to do? Well, first you rarely have 100% of the facts and the information you need and you get in a hurry and second, because you're not God, you can't always see the unintended consequences of your actions, but there's a third reason, is that not everything that you think and not everything that you feel is true." [00:03:57]

"Now, three times in the book of James, he says, don't deceive yourself. He's talking about self deception. Don't deceive yourself. He says it three times and in many other places in the book, he warns you against trusting your own fallible thinking. In fact, self deception is a major theme of this book and now almost 600 years before James wrote his book in the Bible, God told us the same thing in Jeremiah 17 verse nine." [00:05:11]

"The fact is what you tell yourself is not always the truth and what you feel is not always true, feelings lie, your thoughts and your feelings can be created by a whole lot of un-trusting and untrustworthy causes. You know, I've often pointed out to you that we lie to ourselves far more than we lie to anybody else. Sometimes we tell our selves that things are worse than they really are and sometimes we tell ourselves that things are better than they really are." [00:06:16]

"First, God says I am deceiving myself. Listen, when I think that all I've earned and deserve is what I have. In other words, when I think I've earned and I deserve all that I have. You say, what do you mean by that, Rick? Well, in today's culture, we admire, we even idolize what we call the self made person. The guy who supposedly pulls himself up by his own bootstraps makes a success of himself." [00:11:24]

"Now, this is a real common one too. When I think that just hearing God's word, like you're listening to me right now, means that you have obeyed it, that you've done it, that you've applied it in your life. You know, we may attend a worship service or watch online, like we're doing right now, or even take notes on what we hear. But that doesn't mean we've actually applied it in our lives that we have obeyed what, what God said to do and that we've actually done anything about it." [00:14:48]

"Number four, God says I'm deceiving myself when I assume my viewpoint is what God thinks. Well, God says, no, no, no, you got this all wrong here. When I assumed that my viewpoint, what I think, my opinion, my political view, my spiritual view, my theological view whatever, when I assume that my viewpoint is the same thing as God's viewpoint, that it's identical. You ever met anybody who thinks they're right all the time or almost all the time?" [00:19:29]

"Over and over and over again in this book, in scripture, God says that judging others is a sin. James says it. Chapter four, verse 12. 'God is the only law giver and judge and he alone can save and destroy. So who do you think you are to judge somebody else?' It's self deception. In other words, every time I judge somebody else, I'm deceiving myself. Every time you judge somebody else, God says you're deceiving yourself." [00:27:37]

"First Corinthians 15:33. 'Don't fool yourself.' In other words, don't deceive yourself. 'Bad companions will ruin good character.' Bad companions will ruin good character. Now, that verse doesn't just apply to teenagers. It applies to young adults and middle aged adults and even senior adults. The wrong friends can bring you down at any stage in your life. If you don't believe that, then God says you're deceiving yourself. Self deception." [00:29:35]

"When I think I can sin without consequences. You know, we think that if nobody knows about our sin then we're getting away with it. But God says that's a self deception. We always, always, always reap whatever we sew. It's a universal law. Galatians 6:7 says, 'Don't deceive yourselves. No one makes a fool of God. You will reap exactly what you've planted.' So, if I plan to seed the gossip, then people are going to gossip about me." [00:30:20]

"Number one, ask God for clarity. That's what, that's where you start. When I, when I know that my heart is deceitful, that I often tell myself things that aren't true about me, okay? I'm playing tapes that were sent to me by my parents or my peers or partners or friends or whatever on the school yard, ask God for clarity. In Jobe chapter 34, verse 32, Jobe says this. He's talking to God, 'Teach me what I cannot see and if I've done wrong, I will not do so again.'" [00:32:36]

"Number two, ask my small group for help. Yeah, God puts other people in your life to help you by they see things in you that you can't see. They can see your blind spots, just like you can see there's. Proverbs 12 verse 15. 'Fools think they need no advice, but the wise listen to others.' If you think, oh, I can just work on this by myself. I don't really need anybody to talk to me about my blind spots, really? That in itself is a blind spot." [00:33:33]

"Number three, I asked Jesus to change me. We all know that Jesus said, I am the truth and he said, the truth will set you free. So the closer you live to Jesus, the more your life will be filled with the truth. Now, what does that mean? It means you're going to be less vulnerable to being, to self deception and it means that you won't give into it as much because you're walking in the light of God's truth and the more you walk in the light of God, which helps you and helps me see myself as I really am and helps me see others as they really are, the more we're going to move out of self deception into reality." [00:36:36]