There are often times that I am truly shocked at the level of deception that people can allow themselves to fall into…the kind where the lies that they believe have become so much a part of who they are — rather, who they think they are — that even upon being directly confronted with truth, they have to simply point-blank ignore it.

Is it the cost of losing what they think is valuable to them that causes so many to blatantly deny something even when it is right in front of them?

Have you ever thought about the level of pride and self-deception that had to be so prevalent in the minds of the Pharisees and religious leaders of Christ’s day? I mean, really thought about it?

How can their Messiah demonstrate such undeniable proof that He was who He said He was, yet they still denied Him? The question of how these kinds of things happened so frequently is something that has bothered and intrigued me for as long as I can remember.

To embrace what He taught, what He modeled, and what He called people to would mean that these respected, intelligent, well-educated, and well-liked experts would have to publicly and blatantly admit that they had it all wrong. And not only wrong in the sense of private interpretation of some things they believed…but also wrong in the sense of teaching many, many others a false view of God, His will, His ways…everything.

They would have to admit before all of the people of their day that they were leading people astray into mindsets and practices that would ultimately steal, kill and destroy.

They would have to admit to everyone who revered them that they actually were presenting a god that looked more like the devil than the One who gave them life.

Not such an easy pill to swallow.

I mean, what is it that makes people so adamantly deny that which is so plain to so many others? Some might say it is the nature of deception that one does not know they are deceived, and at some level I certainly agree with this. However, what I am talking about is something on a far different level than simply deception rooted in ignorance.

I am talking about the type of deception that seems to pervade so many in the church today — a kind of willing deception, the kind that requires an intentional hardening of the heart and a conscious decision to deny that which is right before you for the sake of staying complacent and not admitting your error.

That kind of deception is the type that I see more often than not. This unflinching, stubborn unwillingness that, in some sadistic way, creates in people a resolve to blatantly reject the goodness of God that they come into contact with. I have presented to countless people the notion that God is good, that Christ took the sins of the world upon Himself and that our Father is not a child-abusing sociopath who sends sickness or disease to teach some kind of moral lesson.

One would think that most would receive a revelation of the love of God as they see these realities not only in word, but in power and action as people are healed, delivered from demonic oppression, and set free from their sins.

Unfortunately, it is more often than not the other way around. A large majority of those who hear this Gospel not only reject it, but quite frequently will end up railing against it, thinking that they are standing up against heresy and doing God a favor.

I take no issue with wanting to stand up for Truth and pointing people back to the Christ of the Scriptures rather than the made-up Christ of their imaginations or church meetings. Obviously, a lot of what I do falls into that category. The problem that I see with so much of what many have called ‘standing for truth’ is that their points of view very rarely stand up to the scrutiny of Scripture in it’s covenantal or cultural context.

The opposing views always fall apart when bringing everything directly back to Jesus as a plumb line for measuring how to address certain situations (sickness, healing, praying for revival, “God’s will”, etc.) or adamantly neglect to address specific points that are made, and instead attempt to divert the discussion in another direction. These are classic misdirection techniques used often in debates and court rooms when one party knows they have been beat.

All of this being said, I have come to a point in my life and ‘ministry’ that I have grown to accept that the harsh reality is that, as it was in Christ’s day and in the days of the early church, that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12-13).

As much as so many want to deny the existence of any type of evil, or even worse, act as if our enemy has no ability whatsoever to do anything anymore, there is no way to reconcile that view of life and our faith with the frequent times that Christ and the apostles wrote of the persecutions they endured and that we would endure as well.

After all, “no servant is greater than his Master. If they persecuted [Christ], they will persecute [us] also” (John 15:20). I mean, really think about it. What are the kinds of things that Christ endured from the popular ‘religious’ crowd of His day?

They denied the power that He had, they often accused Him of heresy and being demonized, and they willingly, intentionally chose to harden their hearts to the reality of what He was presenting from the Scriptures that testified of Himself. They really thought that they would find life in the texts that pointed right to Him, yet refused to come to Him to receive the very life they were searching for (John 5:39-40) because doing so would mean a complete undoing of everything they thought they knew.

The same is true today. How many bible studies have you been to where there are countless hours spent trying to dissect the Scriptures in order to find some ‘hidden nugget of revelation’? How many small group meetings have you been to where the leader spent weeks in the books of the prophets in an attempt to find some deep, hidden meaning or to ‘hear what God has to say’ concerning the coming year? And if you’re really honest, how many of those studies actually led to an increase in fruitfulness in your life?

And how do you reconcile all of those countless hours spent studying the books of the prophets and the old testament law with Jesus’ statement that “the Law and the prophets were until John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:13) and that now, the message we should be learning to understand is regarding what Jesus called “the kingdom of God”?

The old way of thinking has been done away with. Nailed to the cross.

Obsolete, according to the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 8:13). Does that mean we just should ‘throw out the whole old testament’, as some have slanderously been saying we are preaching? By no means.

What it does mean is that we should allow the old testament to function in the capacity that it was always meant to — to point us to Christ…not to give us a plan or method for ‘holy living’. “The strength of sin is the law”, after all (1 Cor. 15:56).

Have you ever tried to tell a child to NOT do something? How did that work out for you?

Paul wrote of these same issues to the Galatians. The Message translation hits this square on. Please do not just glance over the following passages, as we have grown accustomed to doing, thinking we know it already:

“The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.”

 

Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”

 

“Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.

 

And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.” (Gal. 3:12-14, The MSG)

Paul states very clearly above — trying to keep the Law of Moses IMPOSSIBLE. And no, God doesn’t want you to “try your best”, either. All of our attempts to ‘live a holy life’ are to God as filthy rags.

How well has that worked out for you so far? Kill your pride and admit that you can’t do it! That system is ‘self-defeating’ and leads to a ‘cursed life’. Do you realize that the only ‘curse’ that believers can even be subject to is the self-imposed one of trying to live up to the standards of the Law of Moses?

“If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all.

 

It’s purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise.

 

For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.” (Gal. 3:21-22, The MSG)

As stated earlier, I am not saying that we should simply ‘throw out the old testament’. What I am emphasizing here is that we should allow the old testament to function according to God’s design, not some controlling, legalistic pastor’s. Paul goes on to say that we have already arrived at our destination, which is Christ and embracing His work by faith, resulting in direct, complete, uninterrupted relationship with God.

“But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God.

 

Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.” (Gal. 3:25-27, The MSG)

The reality of all of this is extremely simple. Christ fulfilled the Law because we couldn’t. Christ became sin to take ours away. We are no longer sinners, we are saints. We are not ‘sinners saved by grace’. We were sinners. Then we were saved by grace through faith. We are born righteous, born of God, born in Him, and in Him we live and move and have our being.

So why do so many willingly deny it? Why are so many blinded to the goodness of God in that He perfectly fulfilled the Law through Christ?

I believe it to be just as it was in His day…because there has been erected a man-made system of rules, regulations, and self-righteous traditions that make the Word of God (Christ Himself) of no effect (see Matthew 15).

To embrace the true Gospel of the grace of God as given to us in Christ, we must abandon our own self-righteousness and believe by faith that He has made us righteous. No amount of self-effort, ‘holy living’, repentance, ‘crying out’, massive corporate prayer meetings, fasting, or ‘rending our hearts’ can make us clean in His sight.

Why?

Because we are already clean through the word He has spoken over us (John 15:3).

Believing that actually requires faith that His work was sufficient — that He really meant it when He said “it is finished”…that the writer of Hebrews wasn’t joking when they said that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient “once, for all time”. It’s a whole lot easier to look at our own works and mistakes and allow those things to cloud our perception of how our Father sees us.

I certainly don’t think that I will love my children any less when they screw up, nor will I “withhold my presence” from them. Quite the opposite.

What makes us think that God is any different? The reality that we believe to be true usually ends up being the one that manifests the most in our lives. Many will say that they believe that God is good, that Christ’s work was complete—however their actions will reflect the polar opposite.

Could this be just the same as it was in Christ’s day? That “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…teaching as commandments the traditions of men”? I believe so.

At any rate, why even bring up these things? Why ask the hard questions?

Because everyone is thinking it but so few are willing to open their mouths about it out of fear of losing friends or respect amongst their peers.

And so we are back to the beginning — back to the rampant deception that has enslaved so many — and all of it rooted in fear of man.

The question becomes then, what are you going to do about it?

Have I poked and prodded at anything that you know has held you back from standing for what you know to be true? Have you stayed silent when you knew you should have spoken up?

Do you go to church every Sunday and hear your leaders speaking what you know to be lies, yet you sit there squirming because all you have been taught to do is submit and “honor” them?

How much longer will you do the polar opposite of what the disciples of Christ did when facing similar situations — honoring man before honoring God?

How much longer will you sit idly by while lies are peddled for profit and truth is scorned for the sake of comfort and complacency?

Is there not a cause burning within you? Is there no sense of fiery indignation at the sight of the state of bondage that your fellow man or woman resides in because they do not know the freedom that you know?

Will you rise from the chains of the status quo and stand, defying the tyranny and manipulative schemes of controlling ‘leaders’ who care more about their pocket book than your freedom?

I for one made that decision long ago. It is not an easy path, and it certainly is not a choice that lands you winning popularity contests.

The difference is that I sleep a lot better at night than I did when I was in the people-pleasing boat.

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ (Gal. 1:10).

I have peace internally while externally, the enemy exerts his best yet futile efforts to distract and frustrate…rather than having internal turmoil at my own inaction and apathy in the face of what I know to be destructive.

I’d much rather deal with the former over the latter.

I don’t sit there squirming in a pew while some pastor stands before hundreds of people spewing lies about the goodness of God and the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf…because I have chosen to defy those things.

I have chosen to stand aggressively and adamantly against them because I know that they come from the father of all lies. I have decided to denounce all that which hinders freedom and rebel against everything that would enslave the very ones that Christ was sent to free.

We can guise our faith in smooth-sounding sermons and happy holiday programs all we want — but at the end of the day, all those programs, books, and podcasts will not change the world. What will change the world is a group of people who actually take their faith seriously enough to do something about it…and that does mean standing up to the monstrosity that is masquerading as the church today.

With so many praying for change…crying out for ‘revival’…whatever language you want to put it in, the reality is that deep down everyone knows that what they are doing is not working.

You wouldn’t pray for revival if you inherently believed that what you were doing was legitimately effecting change and positively impacting the lives of those around you.

I don’t pray for revival because I know that what I’m doing works and sets people free.

My mission is to revive those who are dead — I am revival.

I know who I am and what I am here for.

Do you?