James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
As someone who is in the word everyday and has been for the last 13 years I can tell you what I am guilty of...I am guilty of knowing what to do, listening to the word, and then not following through with the obedience part. Ouch. So that is why I picked this as my memory verse for the next couple of weeks. Lord give us hearts of obedience!! 
Let's face it we live in a world where Satan is the prince of the Masquerade Ball. If there is deception, that little worm is behind it. If there is a lie, he is the one that came up with it. He is a liar and when he speaks he speaks his native language...lies. We can rest assured that the Lord is truth and in Him there is absolutely no darkness or change and no lie comes from the truth so in this masquerade ball of life we have got to be intentional and, as Morgan says, "take up our swords!"
1 John 2:21
(NIV1984)
21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.
Are you being lied to right now?
Are you the one lying?
God's word is true and we will each reap what we sow. If you know me at all you know that I can kill a plant almost by looking at it. Well, this year we decided to plant some tomatoes, sweet banana peppers, sunflowers, and marigolds. Now seriously, when I planted those I prayed and prayed that the Lord would show off and make those things grow. I about died when I went outside and saw little sprouts from the seeds yours truly had planted. Morgan would call her dad or aunt outside and say, "do you want to see something that will make your day, praise the Lord?" as she would show our little plants growing. We literally just speak out His praises over those flowers and vegetables...they make us so happy. Tonight she told me that she was listening to her dad talk to his brother on the phone and that her dad was giving his brother advice on their tomatoes. She said "mom, I really just don't think they are praying over their tonatoes (tomatoes...but that is how she says it)!"
My point is that we are so blessed and thankful for the tangible things that are growing in our yard, however I have definitely taken some seeds of destruction at times in my own life and planted them and they surely came up and produced a crop of something (usually havoc) in my life. Yet I praise God for His mercy in not treating me as my sins deserve but I sure have learned from the discipline that I received as consequences of my own destructive choices. Most of our predicaments or pits that we get stuck in don't happen over night. Just like literal planting, things take time and effort to grow. I can look back and certain seasons in my life and see where sin was pleasurable to me for a time. Why? Because I was being deceived. When we are deceiving others and deceiving ourselves we are being deceived. Something is masquerading itself proclaiming to be the thing that we think we need to feel alive. Remember 2 Corinthians 11:14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
And that is my point...whatever is luring you in right now that you know good and well is going to reap destruction in your life is not really what it seems. You may think a little here and a little there won't hurt you but it will have it's way with you and snowball all over your life if you don't stop and turn from it. At whatever cost take whatever that thing is and confess it before God. As one who knows, there is freedom in bringing your junk before the Lord and asking Him to rid you of the toxic lure to it, the desire for it, the burning passion you feel for it. He already knows. Ask Him to be your one consuming passion and desire. Take it one day at a time but take those lies to Him and expose them with the truth of His word. The enemy wants to deceive you, bait you, trap you, ruin your testimony, and destroy you and your family. He is hard at it and taking out casualties every day. Let that make you mad. Just like the idols all in the old testament and this verse found in Isaiah 44:20 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?”
Is it not so easy with the enemy being the prince of this world and everything being geared to indoctrinate people with delusions and lies to become so easily deluded? To have a heart/mind that is just flat out delusional? Do you know any delusional people? I sure do! I know some people that I feel sorry for but almost can't be around because everything is a facade and delusion that comes out of their mouth. Instead of them ever just dealing with things head on they are straight up eating ashes from the life they have burned down around them. Yet they will try to convince you and everyone else around them that they are perfect people, with perfect little lives and all the while their mouth is black from the ashes spilling out. They have lied to themselves for so long in an effort to have some self-respect and the fact is no one is buying it but them. It gets straight up repulsive! It doesn't have to be like that for us. The Lord is all about rebuilding and us repenting and us rededicating ourselves to Him. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
The thing is we aren't going to get away with our lies when it comes to Him. He hates lies (proverbs 6) because of the author of those lies. We can't pull the wool over God...praise Him! I am so glad we can't fool Him. When we come, we need to come clean and we will be washed in the blood and forgiven. There is such freedom in repentance. One thing is for sure we will have to acknowledge that the thing we have a death grip on in our right hand...whatever it is you know what your holding on to...we will have to expose it and call it a lie.
Don't you think a lot of us become disillusioned with life on account of what we may feel are unmet needs and maybe they have turned into bitterness? We in some way feel like someone or maybe even God didn't give us what we thought we needed or so desperately wanted? So we justify and rationalize sin away because somehow life was supposed to be different and we got a raw deal?
(TO BE CONTINUED...T.M.I. but I am sick throwing up. ;( )
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