Aging: Not for the Faint of Heart!

Sometime in your 40’s it happens (or will happen when you get there): You are reading something and find that you have moved it just a little farther away from your eyes. If you catch yourself doing it, you think, “Did I really just do that? Wait, I can move it back in, right? Oh, shoot! I really can see it better when it is farther away!” There are other subtle signs: You don’t bounce back from illnesses as quickly; you are having strange aches and pains that, while not worthy of a visit to a doctor, are disturbing nonetheless, as you wonder if something is really wrong with you; you get up from sitting on the floor and find that every body part below your neck has stiffened up.

Closely following behind the trombone playing you do for the benefit of your eyesight come memory lapses: Those things you always remembered easily “before” that you can even make a list for and forget now, usually because you can’t find the list. You Google the symptoms of Alzheimer’s just to make sure you are not losing your mind. Those memory lapses do something to you: They put you “behind” in the game of life, because those 20- and 30-somethings with still-perfect steel trap minds realize they have one-up on you. It is not that you are no longer intelligent or valuable, but it becomes harder for you to “compete,” and you find more and more that you are marginalized solely due to your age, regardless of the abilities or talents you still do possess.

Then come the not-so-subtle signs: All of a sudden, your doctor is wanting to give you regular physicals (you didn’t need those before, right?), to actually look for things that MIGHT be wrong, even though you are experiencing no symptoms. And sometimes, he or she actually finds things that are wrong! The age-appropriate tests kick in (you know, mammograms, colonoscopies, and the like), and you begin to see that life may not be as reliable as you once thought. You learn that a hill exists, and all of a sudden, you are “over it” into the valley called Aging that lies on the other side.

When you’re younger you think you perhaps can escape or are escaping this valley, but none who live that long do. Jesus promised in John 16:33b that:

“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Aging presents tribulations that easily increase in frequency and severity, but at least we do have Jesus’ promise that we, too, can overcome the world in Him. But if aging serves any purpose at all, it is this: It is God’s way of making sure we are not too in love with life. John 2:15-17 states:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Falling in love with life is especially easy if you have accomplished or are accomplishing what you feel is important to you, perhaps a good marriage, a successful career, productive children, a supportive family, treasured friendships. Aging shows us that these things do not always last: Spouses, family and friends may die; children or others may move away; and all circumstances will eventually change. As fatalistic as that may sound, I believe God designed aging for us to use as a springboard to our eternity, as our failing flesh reminds us of the impermanence of life (yes, even yours and mine) and the necessity of being prepared for what lies beyond. Will you spend your aging days focusing on and mourning over lost youth, wasted opportunities, and the “way things were,” or will you tackle your tribulations with the intent of forsaking what this world has to offer and pursuing what Jesus has to offer?

So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:33

How Could This Happen?

Ever had the wool pulled over your eyes? Been taken to the cleaners? Been living in the dark? Whatever you may call it when you have been deceived, a great deal of soul searching usually follows such an event. We want to know how this could have happened to us, for the express purpose of being able to prevent it next time! Fortunately, in the matter of spiritual deception, the Bible has much to say about the manner in which this can happen to us so we can recognize and prevent it.

The first manner in which we can be deceived is by listening to the lies put forth by others, whether those others are friends, relatives, teachers, actors, or the devil himself. Consider the following verses:

And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:13

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. Colossians 2:4

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Ephesians 5:6

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. Jeremiah 29:8

We are deceived when we believe lies—a lie being defined as anything which is contrary to God’s truth. The devil is described in Scripture as the “father of lies” (John 8:44), and finds fertile, gullible ground in the minds of humans (starting with Eve in the Genesis verse above). If you are not interested in God, he doesn’t have to work too hard because you’re already firmly entrenched in those lies. If you become interested in God, he will twist the truths of Scripture to get you off track (so you must become very familiar with what Scripture really says and means).

Others tell us lies, too. The Colossians verse tells us these lies can be persuasive, but the Ephesians verse tells us these lies are empty words. These lies can be presented very charismatically and made to seem very attractive, but there is nothing of God’s truth in them. The Jeremiah verse says Israel was deceived by their own prophets (as opposed to God’s prophets who brought the truth) and their diviners, and even their own dreams. This can easily happen to us as we listen to and tolerate those who seem to or claim to have superior knowledge, or if we claim to have that superior knowledge ourselves.

The next crop of verses telling us the manner in which we can be deceived is rather pointed:

For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Galatians 6:3

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; you who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Obadiah 1:3

“Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them…” Deuteronomy 11:16

As the verses from Galatians and Obadiah tell us, we are deceived by our own pride—we so desperately want to be important and in control that we will lie to ourselves! We find from God’s Word that His importance eclipses ours, and that He is already in control of all things (whether we believe this or not), and we are uncomfortable with the implications of that.

Did you notice the word “heart” in both the Obadiah verse and the Deuteronomy one? The heart is the home to the pride that is in us, as well as our other ungodly tendencies. The truth is, deep down, no one really wants to believe and serve God; if we can deny He exists and live our lives without Him, we can continue in the blissful ignorance of deception. This is the place where we feel important and in control, but nothing could be further from the truth! (See previous blog http://wp.me/p4tk5J-31)

So where are you on the “spiritual deception index”? Are you having the wool pulled over your eyes, being taken to the cleaners, and living in the dark based on what you choose to believe? Or are you willing to turn your back on your pride and other sinful tendencies, and walk the narrow road of knowing, believing, and obeying God’s truth in each area of your life? I am praying you make the right decision—your eternity is at stake!

Talk About Expensive!

What comes to mind when you think of the word “expensive”? Usually, money comes to mind, as we are used to thinking that something that costs a great deal of money is expensive. Most all of us would expect that a luxury villa on a beautiful coastline somewhere would be expensive, yet “expensive” has a relative side, too. If you could buy a $0.59 candy bar at the store, and find the same one at a movie theater for $4.00, that is expensive as well. Something that costs a great deal of money but yields a great deal of value for us may not be deemed to be expensive, and we would say it is worth the price we paid. The Merriam-Webster (online) Dictionary definition of the word is “commanding a high price and especially one that is not based on intrinsic worth or is beyond a prospective buyer’s means.”

Why all this talk about this word? In the long run, there is nothing that is more expensive than spiritual deception. This cost of this deception is not measurable in mere money—it goes way beyond that. Spiritual deception will cause one to expend his or her entire life—money, time, and everything else—for things that seem worthwhile but in truth have no intrinsic worth. One’s efforts are directed at pleasures, ease, and even the necessities of this life with no view to the eternal. Or worse yet, a person may think his efforts and perceived goodness in this life are enough to earn him a pleasant eternity. The cost of spiritual deception is your eternal soul, forever separated from God in everlasting punishment in hell—talk about expensive! Jesus Himself asks:

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Matthew 16:26

Let us start by examining a Bible verse that teaches us about deception’s high cost:

Thus says the Lord: “Do not deceive yourselves, saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely depart from us,’ for they will not depart.” Jeremiah 37:9

In the context of this verse, God had told Judah and King Zedekiah through the prophet Jeremiah that their enemy the Chaldeans would defeat them, bringing His judgment on them for their habitual sin. Instead of believing the reality and certainty of God’s words in this verse, that the Chaldeans would not depart, they substituted a message that was more palatable to them—they deceived themselves! It was easier and more appealing for them to believe what was not true, so they lied to themselves by telling themselves the Chaldeans would depart! They put more weight in their own opinion than in what God, who knows everything, had said! They later paid the price in being destroyed by the Chaldeans, as God had said they would be, ignoring the remedy God had given elsewhere which would allow them to escape with their lives.

Many people do the same when encountering God’s initial message to them in the good news of the gospel. God tells everyone to turn away from their sins and believe in His remedy, Jesus Christ, to escape this world with their eternal souls intact. Instead of believing the reality and certainty of God’s words, they believe what is more palatable to them, which can come in a number of different forms: “I’m a good person; God wouldn’t send me to hell.” “I can’t believe in a God who would send anyone to hell!” “I don’t believe all that stuff.” This list could go on and on, but the point is that by putting more weight in their own opinion rather than God’s truth (or what they deem to be someone else’s opinion), they are only deceiving themselves! They will pay the price, as God said they would, in the loss and punishment of their eternal souls, ignoring the remedy God has freely provided! They will in no way be able to say that the expensive price they will pay for all of eternity will have been “worth it.”

Wow, already an entire blog written, and only one verse covered! The Bible has more to teach us about the cost of deception, so I’ll get into that next week. Until then, I’m praying for you!

Scammed by Satan

Ever get those scam e-mails? You know, the ones that tell you in usually not-so-good English that you have won a sweepstakes (that you never entered) for $2.5M, and to start receiving payment you just need to send $100 and your bank account and routing numbers to a certain link. I can’t believe people actually fall for these, but some surely do, and it ends up costing them. Their desire for the news to be true many times blinds them to the caution they should take in dealing with someone they don’t know.

What is going on here is deception; we have all encountered it. We find it not only in scam e-mails, but in other scenarios as well: car purchasing or repairs, investments, buying products that make certain claims, and many other instances. The cost of deception to us is usually in dollars, but it does not have to be. When we are the one who has been deceived we may feel angry at the deceiver, or angry or disgusted with ourselves for not being wiser. We may end up feeling ashamed at being duped. Deception is unfair!

At any rate, deception has these qualities: Lies are told to purposely mislead, we believe the lies, and when (or if) we discover the lies we find it costs us a price we never would have paid had we known. It is no surprise that the Bible frequently warns us against deception, not financial deception, but spiritual deception. “Someone” (the devil) is out to purposely mislead us, and if we believe his lies the price we pay lasts for all of eternity. You don’t believe he exists? Obviously someone who does not exist cannot deceive you. Great, he has just successfully achieved his first deception!

What exactly is his job? According to Revelation 12:9, it is this:

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

He “deceives the whole world”—what a job that is! How does he accomplish this task? John 8:44 (which I will not copy here, but please feel free to read it) tells us that he is not only a liar, but the father of lies! If he can get the whole world to believe he does not exist (after all, we’ve never seen him in person, or heard him speak), half his job is done! If you think he is that “little red man” with a pitchfork and pointy tail, you would leave when you see him coming because you’re too smart to be taken in! One of his most successful tactics is to plant his lies in your thoughts, but make you believe they are your thoughts. (For more information on his other tactics, check out Week 26 of my devotional, “More of God,” which can be ordered here: http://amzn.to/1zhm8Y7)

2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 says:

The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

Although this verse is about the “coming of the lawless one” (the antichrist, which we will not go into here), it informs us of the tools Satan uses to carry out deception, which are “power, signs, and lying wonders, and … all unrighteous deception.” What that term “all unrighteous deception” means is this: Satan does not and will not play fair! He will deceive anyone he can at any time he can, and does not care one whit about the eternal price he exacts from his prey.

How then do we keep from being deceived? We must be able to separate the lies from the truth. How do we know what is truth? Read what Jesus says to Pilate in John 18:37b:

“For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Jesus is the solution to spiritual deception. Believe and rely on His words and teachings to avoid paying that price you never intended to pay, to avoid one day saying, “If only I’d known!”

Next week’s blog will be more about the actual price paid for being spiritually deceived. Until then, I’m praying for you!