written August 22, 2008
I've got to be honest with you. I'm anxious to write this blog. It's been on my heart for at least a week to search Scripture to try and refute the lies that Satan uses to neutralize Christians and destroy those who don't know Christ. God has revealed to me a few lies that greatly reduced my effectiveness for the Kingdom because I believed them for so long. It is my prayer that God's Truth ring true in this writing and that those of us running the race be encouraged to seek the Truth in all that we do!
Craig Groeschel, pastor of Lifechurch.tv had this to say about lies: "A lie believed as if it were true will affect you as if it were true."
LIE: I don't have to read the Bible or go to church to walk in the Light of Christ.
When I was in college, I tried to reason that I didn't need church to love God. I didn't need to immerse myself in Scripture to know who God was. I just needed to pray and try and do the right thing. Was I a Christian at this point? Yes. Was I living an obedient life that grew the Kingdom? Not even close. Even if one tries to do the right thing as I did, where does he/she turn to understand what the right thing is? The world? Satan has control of the world as John 8:44 states: "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
Truth: I must spend time worshiping and fellowshipping in a Bible teaching church and immerse myself in the Word of God.
John 8:31-32 says "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." How else can one know the Truth apart from God? There is no other way! Scripture contains nothing but the very Truth of Almighty God. It is fast becoming my passion to grow in Truth on a daily basis because it is the necessary process of one who loves God.
Lie: It's enough just to be a good person.
Thinking that I could know and experience the fullness of God outside of His Church and His Word, it was easy to conclude that if I just tried to be a good person, I would be ok with God. This lie causes more people to ignore God's desire to move in their life than any other, in my opinion. Scripture consistently shows the Law as a means of pointing out our sin, not as a means of righteousness. In Romans 3:23-24, Paul writes "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a free gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." This can only lead to the following truth:
Truth: We, as humans, cannot live up to the standard set by our Holy God. We are helpless to free ourselves from the bondage of sin and need a savior to rescue us.
This is the very essence of Christianity that has been lost by so many people! I know I didn't grasp the meaning of this until recently. It took much more than just muttering some words at church. It took an honest and humble look at my own heart to realize that I am wretched and desire worldly pleasures above Godly Truth. Jesus Christ changed all that for me. He became my Lord and Savior so that I might see God and His Truth. Don't ask me to explain God's grace, because it amazes and confuses me every day. However, I know it is real and I cannot deny how drawn I am to God because of Christ.
Lie: My sin makes me ineffective for God's Purpose and His opinion of me can change.
Satan uses the guilt that accompanies sin as a highly effective way of keeping believers from doing God's work. I lived this lie for at least the past 12 years. As most every Christian guy can probably relate to, I struggle with lust. For years, I lived in a very dark place where lust ruled my private life. I knew it was wrong to look at the images I was looking at and think the things I was thinking, and I had horrible guilt. I was useless because of this guilt because I believed that my sin made me worthless in God's eyes. Talk about an awful place in which to dwell! I can not begin to describe the freedom I have experienced through God's Truth about my sin.
Truth: The guilt from sin is the Holy Spirit working to change my heart and make it obedient to Christ. God loves me always.
The guilt I experienced was real, but the reason I experienced it was not the reason I thought it was.
1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." WHOA! God, do you mean to tell me that I lived with guilt for 12 years for no reason and that all I had to do was confess my sin before you and it would be erased from your record? That's exactly what 1John says. However, it doesn't give us free reign to sin as Paul makes clear in Romans 6: 1-2: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" My conscience was right from the beginning, but I didn't have God's Truth to battle the lie. Because of that lie, I limited God and lost opportunites to serve Him. Instead of allowing guilt to rule my life now, I choose to believe God's Word. I try to openly confess my sin knowing that through confession comes healing and a return to Truth, which is exactly where God wants us to be.
Can anything cause Christ to stop loving us? Paul didn't think so. Romans 8:35 &37-39 say "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." God loves us. He waits with open arms for us to turn our eyes towards Him and love Him because He first loved us.
Lie: It is enough to desire that which pleases God and expect God to change my sinful nature.
For the longest time, I thought that if I just prayed and asked God to help me with sin, that, in His mercy, He would give me the strength to combat it. All the while, I continued to allow and tolerate myself to coexist with unmanageable temptations. Deuteronomy 7:26: "And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction." Have you ever rationalized that if you just pray harder, God will give you strength to defeat sin while continuing to allow sinful things to exist in your life? I have! I even took it a few steps further by thinking that since I couldn't stop sinning (even though I kept sin at my fingertips) I must not really love God. How tragic it is to live that lie! God has something infinitely better for his faithful!
Truth: Abhor what is evil and rid your life of the things that cause you to sin and God will equip you with the strength to pursue righteousness.
Does temptation go away? Of course not. Does the ability to resist increase exponentially when evil things are exposed and eliminated? Absolutely! From my experience, I believe that combatting habitual sin takes a radical life change. Christ said so when he told his disciples if their right hand caused them to sin to cut it off for it is better to lose one part of the body than for the entire thing to be thrown into the fires of Hell. Does lust have a stronghold in your heart? Throw out movies, don't buy magazines that spark lust's flame, put web blockers on your computer. Greed causing you to spend too much money? Cut up your credit cards. Give generously to a worthy church or charity. Radical change. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world! They lead to death! God promises so much more when we act in obedience out of love.
I have 3 more lies that I want to address, but it is getting late and I'm afraid I won't finish tonight so I will save them for tomorrow. I'm just beginning to see God's Truth and the effects it has on my life and already the results have been miraculous. I'm free; I'm alive; I'm loved; I'm a child of the Most High God; I was bought at a price; I am God's workmanship; I was created in the image of God!
Know Truth; Know God.
No Truth; No God.
I know it's cliche, but it's true. I'm living proof of the phenomenal effects of Truth. The Truth of God has set me free! I am so very blessed and I look forward to God sharing more of Himself with all of us who hear His word and burn it on our hearts.
Glory to God!
I've got to be honest with you. I'm anxious to write this blog. It's been on my heart for at least a week to search Scripture to try and refute the lies that Satan uses to neutralize Christians and destroy those who don't know Christ. God has revealed to me a few lies that greatly reduced my effectiveness for the Kingdom because I believed them for so long. It is my prayer that God's Truth ring true in this writing and that those of us running the race be encouraged to seek the Truth in all that we do!
Craig Groeschel, pastor of Lifechurch.tv had this to say about lies: "A lie believed as if it were true will affect you as if it were true."
LIE: I don't have to read the Bible or go to church to walk in the Light of Christ.
When I was in college, I tried to reason that I didn't need church to love God. I didn't need to immerse myself in Scripture to know who God was. I just needed to pray and try and do the right thing. Was I a Christian at this point? Yes. Was I living an obedient life that grew the Kingdom? Not even close. Even if one tries to do the right thing as I did, where does he/she turn to understand what the right thing is? The world? Satan has control of the world as John 8:44 states: "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
Truth: I must spend time worshiping and fellowshipping in a Bible teaching church and immerse myself in the Word of God.
John 8:31-32 says "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." How else can one know the Truth apart from God? There is no other way! Scripture contains nothing but the very Truth of Almighty God. It is fast becoming my passion to grow in Truth on a daily basis because it is the necessary process of one who loves God.
Lie: It's enough just to be a good person.
Thinking that I could know and experience the fullness of God outside of His Church and His Word, it was easy to conclude that if I just tried to be a good person, I would be ok with God. This lie causes more people to ignore God's desire to move in their life than any other, in my opinion. Scripture consistently shows the Law as a means of pointing out our sin, not as a means of righteousness. In Romans 3:23-24, Paul writes "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a free gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." This can only lead to the following truth:
Truth: We, as humans, cannot live up to the standard set by our Holy God. We are helpless to free ourselves from the bondage of sin and need a savior to rescue us.
This is the very essence of Christianity that has been lost by so many people! I know I didn't grasp the meaning of this until recently. It took much more than just muttering some words at church. It took an honest and humble look at my own heart to realize that I am wretched and desire worldly pleasures above Godly Truth. Jesus Christ changed all that for me. He became my Lord and Savior so that I might see God and His Truth. Don't ask me to explain God's grace, because it amazes and confuses me every day. However, I know it is real and I cannot deny how drawn I am to God because of Christ.
Lie: My sin makes me ineffective for God's Purpose and His opinion of me can change.
Satan uses the guilt that accompanies sin as a highly effective way of keeping believers from doing God's work. I lived this lie for at least the past 12 years. As most every Christian guy can probably relate to, I struggle with lust. For years, I lived in a very dark place where lust ruled my private life. I knew it was wrong to look at the images I was looking at and think the things I was thinking, and I had horrible guilt. I was useless because of this guilt because I believed that my sin made me worthless in God's eyes. Talk about an awful place in which to dwell! I can not begin to describe the freedom I have experienced through God's Truth about my sin.
Truth: The guilt from sin is the Holy Spirit working to change my heart and make it obedient to Christ. God loves me always.
The guilt I experienced was real, but the reason I experienced it was not the reason I thought it was.
1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." WHOA! God, do you mean to tell me that I lived with guilt for 12 years for no reason and that all I had to do was confess my sin before you and it would be erased from your record? That's exactly what 1John says. However, it doesn't give us free reign to sin as Paul makes clear in Romans 6: 1-2: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" My conscience was right from the beginning, but I didn't have God's Truth to battle the lie. Because of that lie, I limited God and lost opportunites to serve Him. Instead of allowing guilt to rule my life now, I choose to believe God's Word. I try to openly confess my sin knowing that through confession comes healing and a return to Truth, which is exactly where God wants us to be.
Can anything cause Christ to stop loving us? Paul didn't think so. Romans 8:35 &37-39 say "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." God loves us. He waits with open arms for us to turn our eyes towards Him and love Him because He first loved us.
Lie: It is enough to desire that which pleases God and expect God to change my sinful nature.
For the longest time, I thought that if I just prayed and asked God to help me with sin, that, in His mercy, He would give me the strength to combat it. All the while, I continued to allow and tolerate myself to coexist with unmanageable temptations. Deuteronomy 7:26: "And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction." Have you ever rationalized that if you just pray harder, God will give you strength to defeat sin while continuing to allow sinful things to exist in your life? I have! I even took it a few steps further by thinking that since I couldn't stop sinning (even though I kept sin at my fingertips) I must not really love God. How tragic it is to live that lie! God has something infinitely better for his faithful!
Truth: Abhor what is evil and rid your life of the things that cause you to sin and God will equip you with the strength to pursue righteousness.
Does temptation go away? Of course not. Does the ability to resist increase exponentially when evil things are exposed and eliminated? Absolutely! From my experience, I believe that combatting habitual sin takes a radical life change. Christ said so when he told his disciples if their right hand caused them to sin to cut it off for it is better to lose one part of the body than for the entire thing to be thrown into the fires of Hell. Does lust have a stronghold in your heart? Throw out movies, don't buy magazines that spark lust's flame, put web blockers on your computer. Greed causing you to spend too much money? Cut up your credit cards. Give generously to a worthy church or charity. Radical change. Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world! They lead to death! God promises so much more when we act in obedience out of love.
I have 3 more lies that I want to address, but it is getting late and I'm afraid I won't finish tonight so I will save them for tomorrow. I'm just beginning to see God's Truth and the effects it has on my life and already the results have been miraculous. I'm free; I'm alive; I'm loved; I'm a child of the Most High God; I was bought at a price; I am God's workmanship; I was created in the image of God!
Know Truth; Know God.
No Truth; No God.
I know it's cliche, but it's true. I'm living proof of the phenomenal effects of Truth. The Truth of God has set me free! I am so very blessed and I look forward to God sharing more of Himself with all of us who hear His word and burn it on our hearts.
Glory to God!
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