Spiritual Deception


"I never knew you."

Imagine standing before The Lord, and the God whom you thought you had worshiped your entire life claims to have never known you. Is this possible? Yes, and Jesus even says it is probable. Jesus reminds us of this in Matthew 7:13, " Enter through the NARROW gate."  He then goes onto say " for WIDE is the gate that leads to destruction".  Not everyone who cries "Lord, Lord," will enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 7:21). These are, in reality, some of the most frightening words in the bible.

We can go to church every Sunday, and yet we face the reality of  never being a true follower of Jesus.

Let that sink in for a minute. It's frightening isn't it? Because in these bible verses, Jesus isn't talking to the atheists and nonbelievers, He's is talking to the good, religious people who associate themselves with Jesus and yet are shocked to find that Jesus claims to have never known them.

Spiritual deception. It's something that each and everyone of us are prone to. We take the reality of the gospel and we turn it into a superficial story, then turning Jesus into something He is not and therefore our praise on Sunday mornings reaches as high as the ceilings and in reality we are worshiping ourselves.

We are prone to believe that we pray a prayer to then receive a free "get out of Hell" card and proceed on to living our lives for ourselves

But our eternity isn't free, it cost something...it costs a lot.

The truth is we are called to die to our life, die to our family, die to our friends, die to our future, and in our dying live for Jesus.  Jesus is not just a simple prayer for which we are to gain eternity, He summons us to lose our lives. Today, we grasp that concept so lightly, as if it weighs nothing. As if this "free card" didn't cause our savior to hang on the cross bearing all the weight of sin; past, present, and future.

So why then, in return would we ever even desire to become a Christian?

Jesus is more than just a belief, more than a prayer to pray or an intellectual way to describe our very existence.  He is the sole provider of deep satisfaction, purpose,value, hope and love. Nothing else in this world, or even universe can ever satisfy us, meaning then, that we were created to find satisfaction in something bigger.

When we claim to be a follower of Jesus, we claim to have given our life to Jesus and have died to the things of this world. So often we push aside the magnitude of being a disciple of Jesus. Many of us forget there is no Christ without a cross.

Take John 3:16, "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life". Simple enough right? We confess with our mouths Jesus is Lord and believe it in our hearts. But when he is calling us to believe in him, he is calling us to be born again. Which then, in return calls us to take up our cross and follow him.

Do you see why we are so easily deceptive to this deception? We are forgetting to embrace the full picture of what it even means to "believe".

Don't be deceptive, know that The Lord your God comes at a cost. But a cost that is worth it. Don't gain the whole world and lose your soul. Lose the world, everything in it, and gain Jesus. In Jesus you will find fulfillment. And you will find life.




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