Delusions

This morning I went to bed around 4am from staying up to study. Well, before my head hits the pillow at night I open up the word to see what the Lord has to say and to align my heart with the word. Well, last night I was reading Psalm 42 out loud over and over and over until I could feel it in my bones. I got so much energy that I could not fall asleep after that! I hate when I get all excited and my heart starts pounding right before I go to sleep. I seriously thought that the Lord might have needed to just go ahead and take me on last night.

With that being said, I want to keep this short so I don't lose anyone with the length.

Isaiah 44:20
20 He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"

There have been so many times in my life where I have sought and sought to fill the insatiable need in my soul with things or people and I have come up spent and ultimately dry. When I have not sought satisfaction in Christ alone I have ALWAYS ended up bowing down to an idol of sorts and in doing so my heart has been led astray. As you know and idol is something that takes the place of God in our life. Something that exalts itself above the knowledge of Christ. Really to worship an idol is in essence worship of the enemy of our souls. When food was sacrificed to pagan gods, or idols were cast, or children were sacrificed to pagan gods in a fire, this was all really worship of our arch enemy. God will not be mocked. He is God. He alone is to be worshipped. He will be glorified and NO flesh will glory in the light of His presence. He alone is worthy. He knows that His commands are for our good and as we seek to live and walk after Him we will be wise and have health in our bones. However, if we depart from His ways and bow it will ultimately be the death of us.
I was thinking about the times where I have really turned to the right or to the left spiritually speaking and I want to tell you a couple of points that I think happened in my life that got me off the path of righteousness to unrighteousness.

1. I did not detect my own sin. If we do not compare ourselves to the light of Gods word, and by that I mean bringing your soul honestly before God and owning your own poor estate before God and acknowledging your sinfulness and need for His help, His power, His holiness and cleansing in your life consistently, you will ultimately be led astray by the deceitfulness of a deluded heart. A heart that feeds on delusions.

Psalm 36:1-2 says that we can flatter our self so much that we can not detect or hate our sin.
1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.
2 For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.

You and I desperately need a holy hatred for the sin that God hates. Without continual cleansing we will not have clarity in day to day living. We will lose our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

So what do we do? Well, for starters I would like to suggest that you get out some paper or a notebook if it takes that and ask God to search you and point out all known sin so that you can confess it and then pray like crazy for godly sorrow that leads to repentance in the areas that are really ensnaring you.

2. I suffered miserably from unbelief. Once I had gotten off track I felt that I had sinned too much for me to really get back right with God and really start living for Him after some of the things that I had done. I suffered from shame. I knew that I was not authentic and instead of believing God, and just working with Him through His loving discipline I would sort of lay down in defeat.

So what do we need to do instead of believing that we have gone to far in our sin to ever be redeemed? Run to the word. What does God say? How did He use others in the word who had blown it so badly?

Return to Him. Jenny, I can't do that you say. You don't know what I have done. No, I don't but God does. He loves you. He wants to take you back. He longs for you to come to Him but He will not force you to obedience. I will say this...if you have walked with God and tasted of Him...no He will not force you but you will be utterly miserable until you come back to Him.

Isaiah 44:22-23
22 I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."
23 Sing for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath. Burst into song, you mountains, you forests and all your trees, for the LORD has redeemed Jacob, he displays his glory in Israel.

3. Once I had bowed to an idol to try to find satisfaction and the deeper I went in that search for satisfaction the harder it became for me to recognize the lies that I was believing. I would so desperately hold something in my right hand (with a tight grip) that I felt I could not let go of that thing. I felt that I needed it to live and breath, or better yet I felt that it defined me and that I could not go on without finding significance and worth in my idol. Does anyone know what I am talking about? Then I would begin to settle into a pattern and just except low living. I would just do the same thing over and over...come up dry and expect a different result. I was feeding myself delusions. That is the problem with sin. Once we feed the beast it grows and grows and desires to take over and just do us in. The word for lie in Isaiah 44:20 is the word Seqer. Here is a tidbit of the definition from my lexical aides: "deceit, fraud...something of little value...Denotes a way of life which goes completely contrary to God's Law, groundless words or activities which have no basis in fact or reality--completely worthless." So there you have it. That is the manner of sin...lies that prove to be completely and utterly worthless. The things we so desperately cling to that prove worthless.

So what do we do? Run hard after God. Turn away from sin and turn to God. Make small choices that ultimately lead to big choices of obedience.

The apostle Paul so lost his life in Christ that he considered the things of this world to be of little value to him. So much so that he says in the KJV that he considers his losses as dung. I like the word dung better because he is in essence saying I consider the losses to be poo poo! LOL!! Okay does anyone want to keep their dung around? I hope not! Let our sin and the temorary passions of this world become dung to us...a bad detestable stench!

Here you go in the KJV
Phil 3:7-9
7But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
9And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Gotta hurry and get morgan ready! I lost track of time.