6.30.25
Hey, Calvary Fremont –
We Christians are experts at self-deception. For example, we live in The Wilderness and call it The Promised Land. We live in The Land of Water and Manna and call it The Land of Milk and Honey. We live in The Land of Barely Getting By and call it The Land of Peace and Prosperity. We are wringing our hands daily because of worry and our minds are frequently choked with anxiety. We profess the Peace of Christ, but we don’t possess what we profess. But that’s OK with us – we are content with a Profession not accompanied by Possession. Because if it looks spiritual and sounds spiritual and is perceived as being spiritual – then it must be spiritual. We live in the Land of Profession and call it the Land of Possession. We live in The Land of Appearances and call it The Land of Substance. We are experts at self-deception and are content with the pseudo-spirituality that accompanies it.
Marriage used to be understood as a covenant between a man and a woman. But today, you don’t need the woman! Today, you can profess the Peace of Christ without possessing the Peace of Christ. And even as a marriage doesn’t require a woman anymore, so the Peace of Christ doesn’t require the Peace of Christ. If you profess the Peace of Christ, that’s enough – you are a spiritual person – or that’s what many think. We Christians are experts at self-deception. We have convinced ourselves that professing is possessing. We live in The Land of Make-Believe and call it The Land of Belief.
And why do we do this? Why do we engage in this self-deception? Well, if we convince ourselves that all is well, we will be shielded from the real poverty of our pseudo-spirituality; we won’t need to confess our sin; we won’t need to do the hard work it takes to change. And this is exactly why the Lord raises up prophets from the Land of Substance to rebuke those living in the Land of Appearances. The prophets went to those living in The Land of Disobedience and yet called it The Land of Obedience.
Jesus says to the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3 – “…you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked…” The Laodiceans thought they were living in The Land of Much when they were actually living in The Land of Little.
Self-deception guards us against the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The lax demands of a pseudo-spirituality cushion us from the demands of Him who is All-Consuming. We convince ourselves that we have given The Holy God what He commands when in fact, like the Pharisees, our Theology of Self-Deception shields us from His Claim of Full Surrender. When your theology negates the Voice of the Lord – it’s time to change your theology. When your theology is the cause of you turning away from Him who is calling you – it’s time to move to a New Land.
I belong to the Calvary Chapel Movement and have been a CC pastor for over 40 years. The thing with Movements is that they move. The only time a Movement doesn’t move is when it’s shackled to the past. I find that within our Movement many believe that they are living in the Land of the Present Moving of God when they are actually living in The Land of the Glorious Past. We so desperately desire God to do what He did that we are deaf and blind to what He is doing. We have moved from the past guiding the present to the past governing the present. Moses is dead and God is raising up those who will exercise oversight and cast vision.
We Christians are experts at self-deception. Self-deception shackles you to a false narrative, an empty fullness, a corrupt glory. Remedy: READ YOUR BIBLE! Ask yourself: Is what the Bible describes as the normal Christian life actually happening in your life? If not, why not? Ask the Holy Spirit to remove the blinders of self-deception that makes you think all is well when, in fact, you are missing out on the fullness of the Goodness and Graciousness of a Holy God.
Stay healthy and be blessed and take off the blinders and move with the Holy Spirit – Pastor Tim
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