It does honestly break my heart to see people so deceived though, and to know that the deception is spreading ever wider all the time, even into the churches. This knowledge that the deception is spreading makes it all the more important that we, who are in the Body, seek the Father daily, that we spend time alone with Him, learning about Him and from Him. It is important that we check ourselves, our hearts, and our walk with the Lord often, are we being the light to others? Will they see Jesus in us by the way we live and give? Are our actions pleasing and glorifying to the Father? Are we pointing others to Yeshua? Are we showing them the love of God?
To be honest I'm not just asking these questions for you but for myself too. These are important questions that we probably should all ask ourselves more often, everyday really. It is so easy to fall away and not even realize it, so easy to go astray into sin and deception, it is easy not see it in ourselves right away, or at all until its too late. That's why Peter warned us to be sober and vigilant (1 Peter 5:8-9); he tells us that Satan prowls around like a lion looking for people to devour, and he says that to resist him we must be firm in our faith. That means that our faith then must be forefront in our lives, our service to God and our relationship to Him must be our foundation for all relationships and things in our lives, that is solid faith, firm faith that won't be shaken because it is consistently looking to the Creator.
We know from the Bible that the deception and corruption in this world are only going to get worse until Yeshua returns for His Bride. We don't know when that will be, but we know God's word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11), He never fails to fulfill His promises (Numbers 23:19;
Isaiah 40:8; Romans 9:6) so it will happen and we need to be prepared for it, our hearts should be ready. We need to be like the 5 wise virgins Jesus talked about found in Matthew 25:1-13; ready with oil to shine light and enter the banquet with our bridegroom at any given time. But that is impossible if you aren't doing the necessary things to be prepared.
What are the necessary things? First having that relationship with God I keep talking about, not an every once in a while relationship but an everyday, all day relationship. Second we should check our hearts and actions against the Word often so we are focused on the things that please the Father and can receive correction from when we go off course. Third we need to be living what we read, we need the scriptures to be applied to our lives in a real way. This is how we avoid deception in our own life and shine a light that others will see. This is how we stay vigilant in a time of great deception. Be blessed.
Ephesians 5:6
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.1 Peter 5:8-9
8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
No comments:
Post a Comment