Tag: proud

What is the Deceitfulness of Sin?

The writer of the Book of Hebrews in the Bible warns us of the following:

Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  Hebrews 3:12-13

Drawing from the history of the Jewish people, the writer exhorts us not to be like those who had unbelieving hearts, fell away from the living God and died in the wilderness.

The Holy Spirit is speaking through the writer to warn us about our heart [our inner man- who we truly are] becoming hard [unbelieving] toward God and His Word [the Bible] because of the deceitfulness of sin.

What is this that hardens our heart toward God? How does our old sinful nature deceive us into believing it is better to obey our evil cravings instead of obeying God? Here is how:

Offers False Promises of Pleasure – sin acts as bait, dangling immediate, fleeting satisfaction or gain while hiding the inevitable pain and ruin it produces. Sin will cost you more than you’re willing to pay and sin will keep you longer than you’re willing to stay.

Progressive Hardening of the Heart – sin dulls spiritual sensitivity over time, moving a person toward apathy, disobedience, and an inability to recognize evil.

Self-Deception – The Bible warns that our own hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), prompting us to rationalize wrongful behavior and believe we can escape consequences. Our sin flatters us in our heart into believing we are “special” and “different”. We lose any fear of God we once had.

Distortion of Truth – Sin mask itself as wisdom or enlightenment, just as it did in the Garden of Eden, causing us to doubt God’s word. It makes us forget that God said you would reap what you sow.

Misleading About God – It makes God’s commands seem unreasonable or restrictive, trying to make us believe that God is against our best interests.

Did you recognize any of sins tactics? Unfortunately, I recognize them all. They have tricked me at times into forsaking church attendance, not reading/studying my Bible, not praying, being prideful and arrogant, thinking I’m special when I was just sinful, not loving my fellow Christian and the unbeliever, being consumed with my agenda and not God’s, lying, lusting, rebellious, unloving, stubborn….and we could go on all day.

What should we do if we find ourselves with a hard, unbelieving heart today? We need to confess our sins and pride to God the Father. He already knows them and they are not a surprise to Him. He has promised the following:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. I John 2: 1-2

and

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9

In Proverbs there is a Scripture that says a righteous man falls seven times but he always gets back up. So lets all get back up, turn from and confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness, believe God’s Word, live smarter by the power of the Holy Spirit and go do the good works God saved us to do. Be a blessing to someone.

May He richly bless you in your obedience.

Carl

A Secret of Christian Happiness

“Truly, Truly, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.” 

Lord Jesus  –  John 13: 16-17 -emphasis added

This is applicable to the commands of Christ in general. Note, though it is a great advantage to know our duty, yet we shall come short of HAPPINESS  if we do not do our duty.

Knowing is in order to doing; that knowledge therefore is vain and fruitless which is not reduced to practice; nay, it will aggravate the sin and ruin, Luke 12: 47-48; James 4:17.

It is knowing and doing that will demonstrate us of Christ kingdom, and wise builders.  See Psalms 103:17-18.

It is to be applied especially to this command of humility and serviceableness. Nothing is better known, nor more readily acknowledged, than this, that we should be humble; and therefore, though many will own themselves to be passionate and intemperate, few will own themselves to be proud, for it is as inexcusable a sin, and as hateful, as any other; and yet how little is to be seen of true humility, and that mutual subjection and condescension upon which the law of Christ so much insist!

Most know these things so well as to expect that other should do accordingly to them, yield to them, and serve them, but not so well as to do so themselves.

Author: Matthew Henry

May your blessedness or happiness abound more and more as you daily do your Christian duty of serving/obeying our Great God and our Master Jesus in the power of His Holy Spirit, keeping yourself clean from the defilement of your daily walk by the cleansing power of the precious blood of Jesus. See I John 1: 4-10.

Happiness to you!

Carl

Payday for the Proud

“GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”    James 4:6

I don’t know about you, but I definitely need the grace of God daily.  I don’t need Him to oppose me or resist me because of pride in my life. I need Him to enable me to walk in the Spirit and be a blessing to others, not a stumbling block to others.

Here is scripture I found in Isaiah that speaks of a day of reckoning. It is a good reminder of what happens to the proud and those who reject God’s Word. May it be food for your spirit man.

“For the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased.”

“And the pride of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men will be abased, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

“But the idols will completely vanish. And men will go into caves of the rocks, and into holes of the ground BEFORE THE TERROR OF THE LORD, AND BEFORE THE SPLENDOR OF HIS MAJESTY, WHEN HE ARISES TO MAKE THE EARTH TREMBLE.”

“In that day men will cast away to the moles and the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, in order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs, BEFORE THE TERROR OF THE LORD AND THE SPLENDOR OF HIS MAJESTY, WHEN HE ARISES TO MAKE THE EARTH TREMBLE.”

Isaiah 2: 12, 17-21 NASB (emphasis added)

In Isaiah, God is about to bring judgement on the “house of Jacob” who has forsaken Him, for idols. Terrible judgement is coming on them. The proud will be humbled.

In Revelation 6: 14-17 we see the same futile “hiding” by the proud in the future. They still have their idols and have rejected the gospel of the Lord.

“And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;

and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “FALL ON US AND HIDE US FROM THE PRESENCE OF HIM WHO SITS ON THE THRONE, AND FROM THE WRATH OF THE LAMB;

FOR THE GREAT DAY OF THEIR WRATH HAS COME; AND WHO IS ABLE TO STAND?”

(emphasis added)

He describes these people and their idolatry in Revelation 9:20:

“And the rest of mankind, who where not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of sliver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.”

Thanks be to God, our Father, because He sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins. We will not be on the receiving end of “the wrath of the Lamb”.  Let us walk humbly before our God and greatly rejoice in His love, grace and mercy.

May His peace be upon you! Keep yourself from idols!

Carl