The Great Deception

Tonight, I want to share with you a thought from 1 John chapter 3:

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother . . . Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

This can be misunderstood. Don't read this and come away thinking that truly saved people don't sin anymore--they do. But the difference is that unsaved people enjoy sin, and saved people cannot enjoy sinning because they are grieved in heart and pricked in conscience when they willfully rebel and sin. Now, repeated rebellion and a willful lifestyle of sinning after one has become a believer suppresses the Holy Spirit's ability to influence you, and your soul becomes calloused and hardened. But generally, if you are saved, and if indeed the Holy Spirit dwells in you, then you will find yourself pricked by sin and unable to enjoy it--at least, not for very long. I find this often. The more I read my Bible and consistently pray and meditate on things that are pure, good, lovely, and of good report, the more I am offended and grieved by the evil language of some of my classmates and colleagues. I am glad for this, because it is all too easy to become used to it. I do not want to ever become used to it. I want to be pained every time I hear my Savior's name taken in vain. I work very hard and pray for wisdom all the time to discern truth from error in what I hear, and what I am taught in my classes.

For example, today we entered our unit of death and dying. Now, in the medical field, it is recommended to incorporate a "spiritual element," whatever that happens to be, for each particular patient, so that they may die in peace after having "lived it up" at the end of their lives. Nowadays, we're allowed to recommend that terminally ill diabetic patients eat whatever they want, so long as they enjoy themselves in their final months on earth. The focus is comfort and pleasure. Now, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with these recommendations. What's wrong is that they woefully miss the point. Not every road leads to heaven, but inevitably, every patient who dies is spoken of as having "gone to a better place"--whatever that may be, and nobody really seems to be willing to say, because they actually have no idea.

They are all deceived. Those who die apart from Christ do not "go softly into that good night," to quote a famous poem. They go to a terrible end, which is really not an end at all. Salvation has nothing to do with being "a good person," thus being earned by good deeds; it is entirely by faith alone in Christ alone. And, as a Christian, I encounter these topics with a far heavier weight of sober understanding than those around me. How grieved I am, how I choke back tears of anguish when they carry on in such a way, blindly stumbling into hell, yet they are repulsed and offended by such "narrow-minded" views as mine. But I know that narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Wide is the way of destruction, and many are those who enter by it.

So my loves, let the Spirit of God reside unfettered within you. Fill your heart with his holy thoughts. It is good and right and profitable to be offended and grieved by sin. Let his love fill you. Let that love flow out of your grateful soul into the world around you--let it wash over the people in your home like a healing wind. Be an instrument of peace and purity, not in word only, but in deed and thought and private meditation.