Daily Thought for Thursday, January 27th

January 27, 2011

Deceit

Today’s Thought:

Be not easily deceived for God is not mocked.

Today’s Question

How easy is it for us to deceive our self?

Today’s Spiritual Thought:

Deceit is rooted in dishonesty, whether directed at others or introspectively at ourselves: to be deceived simply means to believe a lie.

If we are the deceiver, we are imitating the characteristics of Satan who is the master deceiver and Father of all lies and if we are the deceived then we are in need of Godly wisdom, the gift of discernment, thus indicating we need to strengthen our relationship with the Father of Truth in whom no lie can be found.  For His yes is always yes and His no is always no and when He says one things He never means another.

We sometimes expect our enemies will attempt to deceive us, but when the deception comes from a friend or even our own selves then it is far more hurtful.

Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” 

And of deceit Abraham Lincoln said, “You may fool all the people some of the time: you can even fool some of the people all the time: but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

The truth is in God’s economy truth will always be reveled in the end.

We may fool our friends, our friends may fool us, but usually eventually we learn the truth and so do they.  And when we try to fool ourselves we are fighting a loosing battle because in truth we are not truly deceived we are generally only in denial about what we really know to be the truth.

This is especially true when it comes to our spiritual lives.  We try to convince ourselves we are doing our best for God, we are praying enough, we study His Word sufficiently and we cherish Him adequately; but is this really the truth?  Are we really optimally all we can be for God’s glory?  Isn’t there always room for improvement?

Being deceived by others is not a sin, but deceiving ourselves is.  For to deceive ourselves we must lie to our self and lying is a sin.  Remember the Ten Commandments “Thou shall not lie” is in there.

And the one truth we need to always keep in our minds is this we can never deceive God.

And after all, whom are we really trying to please, Him or ourselves?

Today’s Verses:

Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.  Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips. A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?  Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Proverbs 27:1-6

Today’s Prayer:

Father, grant me the ability to discern deceits from others, but even more importantly keep me from foolishly trying to deceive myself.