Steps Toward Deception

How do people become deceived?

I was a little surprised earlier this year, while listening to Winkie Pratney's 21CR (21st Century Reformation) podcast, when he said that deception doesn't begin with believing a lie. In fact, according to his teaching on the "I Wills" of Satan in Isaiah 14, he said that intellectual deception was the fourth phase of this process.

So what does Pratney say is the process toward deception? Here is a summary list (you can get the complete notes of the 21CR Seminar here):

1. Independent Spirit
2. Selfish Choices
3. Searing Your Conscience
4. Intellectual Deception

You can also subscribe to the 21CR Podcast here.

My dad used to ask this question: "Do you want something bad enough, you'll deceive yourself to get it?"

Please feel free to share your thoughts on deception by posting a comment below.

Don't Beat Yourself Up

This post is a summary of the message shared at Titusville Branch on October 5, 2008.

Many Christians do not agree with a once common practice in the church: self-flagellation. Throughout Christian history there have been ascetics who promoted severe self-discipline and denial of many sensory pleasures. The term “mortification of the flesh” came from scriptures like, “...those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24, cf. Romans 8:13 and Colossians 3:5). This idea and these scriptures were used as a basis for things like self-whipping, extreme fasting, wearing hairshirts, etc.

From the Past to the Present
The following comes from Wikipedia’s article on “mortification of the flesh”:

• Dominic Loricatus is said to have performed 'One Hundred Years Penance' by chanting 20 psalters accompanied by 300,000 lashes over six days.
• Francis of Assisi, is said to have asked pardon to his body for the severe self-afflicted penances he has done: vigils, fasts, frequent flagellations and the use of a hairshirt.
• Catherine of Siena wore sackcloth and scourged herself three times daily in imitation of Dominic.
• At the latter half of the twentieth century, Josemaría Escrivá practiced self-flagellation and used the cilice, a modern-day version of the hairshirt.
• Pio of Pietrelcina, wrote in one of his letters: “Let us now consider what we must do to ensure that the Holy Spirit may dwell in our souls. It can all be summed up in mortification of the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, and in guarding against a selfish spirit... The mortification must be constant and steady, not intermittent, and it must last for one's whole life. Moreover, the perfect Christian must not be satisfied with a kind of mortification which merely appears to be severe. He must make sure that it hurts.”
• Pope John XXIII wrote: “But the faithful must also be encouraged to do outward acts of penance, both to keep their bodies under the strict control of reason and faith, and to make amends for their own and other people's sins... St. Augustine issued the same insistent warning: ‘It is not enough for a man to change his ways for the better and to give up the practice of evil, unless by painful penance, sorrowing humility, the sacrifice of a contrite heart and the giving of alms he makes amends to God for all that he has done wrong.’ ...But besides bearing in a Christian spirit the inescapable annoyances and sufferings of this life, the faithful ought also take the initiative in doing voluntary acts of penance and offering them to God.... Since, therefore, Christ has suffered in the flesh, ‘it is only fitting’ that we be ‘armed with the same intent.’ It is right, too, to seek example and inspiration from the great saints of the Church. Pure as they were, they inflicted such mortifications upon themselves as to leave us almost aghast with admiration. And as we contemplate their saintly heroism, shall not we be moved by God's grace to impose on ourselves some voluntary sufferings and deprivations, we whose consciences are perhaps weighed down by so heavy a burden of guilt?"

Back in 1990 my wife and I visited the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Leading up to this large church is a two-mile walkway called ‘Calzada de Guadalupe.’ Every year penitent people crawl on their knees the entire length to plead for mercy and miracles.

No Value Against the Flesh
It is true that Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” However, Paul writes in Colossians 2:23 that these types of activities have “the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” They only have the appearance, the facade, of wisdom. They come from self-made religion. And they have no value against fleshly indulgence.

True, we are not to live according to the flesh, we are to deny ourselves, and we are not to indulge fleshly desires. However, Romans 8:13 makes it clear one way we are to put to death the deeds of the body. Paul says here that “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Denying ourselves isn’t something we do for the purpose of “self-abasement and severe treatment of the body.” It is more a matter of obedience – obedience to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit may lead us to fast or to deny ourselves some pleasure. But asceticism only has the “appearance of wisdom in self-made religion” and has “no value against fleshly indulgence.”

Few People Practice this Today
I have never met any Christian that actually practices any type of strict asceticism or mortification of the flesh. Many baulk at such a thought. What I find interesting, however, is that there are many of us who practice a type of internal self-flagellation.

Sometimes we cannot get over ourselves when we fail, when we sin, when we make a mistake. We often have to brutally beat ourselves mentally before we can accept the Father’s forgiveness. We berate ourselves with verbal thoughts like: “You idiot. You’re such a loser. You’re such a failure.” And we can’t walk through the corridor of Christ’s mercy until a substantial time of self-flagellation has passed.

This, too, has no value against the flesh. This type of response doesn’t enable us to overcome.

Not only is this a type of false humility, this strips faith from us. Lack of faith hinders God’s work in our lives. Lack of faith displeases Him (Hebrews 10:38, 11:6). And lack of faith prohibits righteous living. Romans 3 says that faith is the very thing needed to be made right with God. Faith, not a self-whipping.

Do we place more confidence in beating ourselves, or in the atoning work of Jesus? Can he justify us without the help of our self-flagellation? I would submit that he cannot justify us when we beat ourselves up because we are placing our confidence in ourselves, in the flesh, rather than in his sacrifice for us.

How Long Does it Take to be Right with God?
How much time does it take to become right again with God when we’ve sinned? How long does it take to trust Jesus for his available mercy and forgiveness? Does it take hours or days of self-punishment? Or do we really have faith in Christ’s work? We can be right with God a split second after failing, if we only believe (see 1 John 1:9-2:2). Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Paul says that he did not have “a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Philippians 3:9). How long does it take to believe?

Faith to Overcome
It takes more faith to get up and go on, than to beat ourselves up for how we have failed. (It takes more humility, too.) And faith is the only thing that enables us to overcome.

“... my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”
Hebrews 10:38-39

Please share your thoughts by posting a comment below.

A 'Tail' of Two Dogs

Have you ever heard any variation of the illustration below?

Imagine you have two dogs living inside you. The name of one is Flesh and the name of the other is Spirit. These dogs keep getting into fights with each other. Which dog is gonna win? The strongest one, of course: the one that’s been fed right, exercised, and taken care of. Well, then, which dog are you taking the best care of? Do you “feed” your spirit with Scripture, prayer, preaching, uplifting music? Or are you feeding your flesh with inappropriate TV shows, movies, foul language and jokes (saying them OR listening to them), music that has questionable lyrics?

Okay, this illustration may have some good points. But I see some inherent flaws. This story seems to leave the following impression: “so as long as I feed Spirit more, then it’s okay. I can still feed Flesh, but if I do more ‘Spirit’ things, it will be stronger than Flesh.”

Paul says, however, “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” He also says “that those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.” It sounds like we are supposed to kill one of the dogs.

Paul is a Hard One to Follow
Why is this story so popular? I believe it comes from a misunderstanding of something Paul wrote. In fact, Peter talks about how some of Paul’s writings are difficult to understand, which some people actually distort (see 2 Peter 3:16,17). This distortion may be unintentional. But it may exist because we have a tendency to interpret scripture through personal experience.

Many people have taught that Paul experienced the same ‘dog fight’ described above because of his words in Romans 7:14-25. He says things like:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (v. 18)
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (v. 20)
For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (vs. 22,23)
So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (v.25)

Seems like that explains itself, right?

There's More to the Story
Well, actually, Paul didn’t stop there at the end of chapter 7. In fact Paul didn’t divide up his writings into chapters and verses. Chapter 8 continues his thought.

One other important distinction here is the change in tenses that Paul uses. The verses leading up to verse 14 are past tense. Then in Romans 8:2, he switches back to the past tense. Romans 7:14 to Romans 8:1 are an illustration that Paul is using to make his point which he brings to a crescendo in Romans 8:2-4.

If we stop at the end of chapter 7, we would be left with the impression that there are two laws, the law of sin and death and the law of God. We would be left with the impression that the Christian is to left serving the law of God with his mind, and the law of sin with his flesh or body. But Romans 8:2 says unequivocally that this is not the case.

Why is There No Condemnation?
The reason there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus is because God introduced a NEW law. Paul concludes that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” This law of the Spirit is the new law. Paul goes on to say that “the requirement of the law of God” can be “fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” We don’t hear Christians talk like that today.

If we are not fulfilling the requirement of the law of God, it’s not because of two dogs fighting inside us. It’s because we haven’t killed one of the dogs.

Jesus Agrees with Paul
Jesus actually affirmed that two dogs cannot live inside us when he said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24a).

If we are having major struggles with the flesh, perhaps it because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has NOT set us free from the law of sin and death. Remember these other words of Jesus, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

With the weight of other scriptures against it, I am led to the conclusion that the story of two dogs (named Flesh and Spirit) is actually a tall tale.

Please share your thoughts by posting a comment below.