Getting Lost - Self Deception Series 22 – Purity 1111

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of the Bluffs Edge Trail winding through the wilderness along the coast of Lake Erie comes to us from yours truly as I captured this wooded scene on the return trek to our automobile during yesterday's visit to Erie Bluffs State Park. Well, it's Thursday and I am happy to report that we did make it out of Erie Bluffs State park, no thanks to myself, because I became so focused on the twists and turns of the map that I had captured to my phone that I didn't realize that I wasn't where I thought I was and ignored the obvious signs that told us which way to go. I began to take a left turn based on my supposing when my wife pointed out that our car is over there on a path straight ahead. I was in utter disbelief at the time because the twists and turns of the path seemed to match up with the map, which told me that we had to bear left, otherwise we would be taking a long walk to the other end of the park. In my defense, and after a further review of the map, two factors came into play that led me astray. Number one, the map didn't accurately reflect reality. There were mown paths and little, little foot trails at the park that were not on the map. And two, at a critical point on the walk out of the woods, we came to a three-way unmarked intersection at which, at which turn we, we chose a path that was in the right direction, but I assumed we were at a point that was further west than we were. So I assumed that we were We were on the westward leg of Transition Trail when we were on the southern leg, and when our winding progress seemed to match up with the map, I took an unmarked mowed path to the left to be the Black Oak Savannah Trail when in fact it wasn't. Luckily, Tammy Lynn was looking at where she was going rather than blindly following me and pointed out the shapes of automobiles in the distance that signaled, "This is the way." I really was sure I knew where I was going, and even after seeing the vehicles, I wasn't convinced as I experienced the cognitive dissonance of my imagination and expectations being confronted with the contradictory information of reality. But I begrudgingly trusted my wife and followed her until it was clear that That parking lot was the parking lot, and I humbly admitted I had been lost and didn't know it. I had believed things that were not true and continued believing them until it was painfully obvious that I had been delivered— uh, deceived by faulty information and false expectations created by my imaginative assumptions. Just because you think something is true doesn't mean that it is, and just because you are sincere Spear in believing your false beliefs doesn't mean they will take you where you want to go. To know the truth, we have to accurately look at all the evidence and admit when we have made a mistake in judgment when reality reveals the error of our ways. And that brings us to our current series on self-deception where we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive ourselves by walking through Step 2 Deception Versus Truth of the Steps to Freedom in Christ to see what ways we have been deceived by the world and ourselves, and in what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves. So today we present the sixth of the ways to deceive yourself, and number 6 says, thinking that God is the source of my problems. The scripture reference for this point is Lamentations 3:1-24, and we read it now from the New Living Translation, uh, New Living Translation version of the Bible. Verse 1, from 1 to 24, says, I am the one who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of the Lord's anger. He has led me into darkness, shutting out all light. He has turned his hand against me again and again all day long. He has made my skin and fresh flesh grow old. He has broken my bones. He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress. He has buried me in a dark place like those long dead. He has walled me in and I cannot escape. He has bound me in heavy chains, and though I cry, cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers. He has blocked my way with a high stone wall. He has made my road crooked. He has hidden like a bear or a lion, lion waiting to attack me. He has dragged me off the path and torn me in pieces, leaving me helpless and devastated. He has drawn his bow and made me the target for his arrows. He shot his arrows deep into my heart. My own people laugh at me. All day long they sing their mocking songs. He has filled me with bitterness and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink. He has made me chew on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust. Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is. I cry out, my splendor is gone. Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost. The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends; his mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, "The Lord is my inheritance; Therefore I will hope in him. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV. After a long journey into despair based on the facts of his suffering, Jeremiah made a mistake in concluding that God was out to get him. He looked at his situation and God's sovereignty and more or less assumed God hates me and was the source of all his problems. This is the classic trap of the enemy. And self-deception, where we take things that are facts, things that are true, and draw conclusions that are false from them. Some examples of this are: They didn't answer my call. They must not like me or care about me. My wife left me, so I must be unlovable. My parents ignored me. I must be worthless. I was picked last on the team, so I must be useless. Just like an illusionist uses misdirection to grab our focus to keep us from seeing the truth, we can focus on the facts of our situations, ignoring other things that disagree with what we believe is true, to the point that we draw a false conclusion. "We must turn left here," for instance. But luckily, in the above passage, Jeremiah looks past the facts of his sufferings and remembers the truth about God. God isn't hateful, he's loving. God isn't mean and abusive, God is merciful. When Jeremiah remembers the truth about God, he leaves his despair behind and is filled with hope that is based on the truth of God's faithfulness. And just like Jeremiah, we have to remember God's faithfulness when we start to slip into hopelessness or condemnation. God is not the source of our problems. Yes, the facts may reflect that we are suffering or people have rejected us, but the higher truth of God's love, acceptance, care, and provision remains true. And when the going gets tough, we accept the reality of our situations, but we also put our hope in God and trust that he will be with us and will help us with his strength, comfort and wisdom until the facts are seen according to God's truth and perspective. When we spend our lives walking and talking with God and following where he leads, we are never lost for too long, and even in the darkest valley we can have peace and joy because he is with us. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. And today's verses— this morning's meditation verses come from the section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. Today's verses are Deuteronomy 8:2-5 from the NIV. And the word of God says, remember how the Lord your God led you all the way into the wilderness these 40 years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these 40 years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Today's verses fall under the 7th point of our Counseling Reference Guide resource section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. And that point— or is the 8th point— is God disciplined and tried his people on their journey to the the Promised Land to teach them important lessons. Today's verses remind us that the Lord tests his people, but they also remind us that although he may humble us, the Lord does it as a loving father who seeks to teach his children the proper way to go and to best represent his kingdom. Jesus quoted verse 3 from this passage when he was tempted in the wilderness by Satan. Telling the evil one that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. We are supposed to live on the Lord's instruction for us, and we are to keep his commands. And so the Lord will test us with the per— with the purpose that we will learn to depend on his wisdom and strength as we go through life. So when we run into trials, we can comfort ourselves by remembering that God has always tested his people— and that the difficulty we face proves that God cares about us and seeks to refine our faith and cause us to agree with and follow him. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where we share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit: as we continue, or, and actually conclude, chapter 17 of that book, which is on the spirit uniting in Christ, with today's section on spiritual union. So if you want to know what spiritual union with Christ is, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship, with a daily spiritual practice of prayer, Bible study, meditation, and just doing what the Lord leads you to do. Um, when, when we encourage that because we discovered this pathway and, uh, have found peace and joy along the way, although there were trials. Um, so we'll keep it real by telling you, just like Jeremiah, we suffered at times. And although I don't think I ever blamed it on the Lord, I blamed it on myself mostly. The poor— the negative consequences from poor decisions and sin. And luckily, after I repented, things began to get better and have gotten really good. And basically to the point where I testify of the Lord's goodness and encourage people to follow him almost every day. Why? Because I experience my freedom in Christ. And if you don't know what that is and don't have the peace and joy of the Lord or the presence of the Lord with you on a continual basis, we encourage you to find it by checking out our discipleship classes. Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ are all based on the The work of Dr. Neil Anderson and the Word of God, and they're available on our YouTube channel and their podcast. So we encourage you to check that out, to experience who you are in Christ, and to, well, to know who you are in Christ and experience your freedom in Christ. As the fruit of the Spirit is supposed to grow in our lives, and if we feel stuck in some areas, we might have some spiritual and personal conflicts that we need to resolve, which the Steps to Freedom in Christ will, well, lead you through. So, and again, the Lord will be with you, of course, because his wisdom, his word reveals the truth about us, and we have to remember that truth over the circumstances of this life and apply it. So we encourage Bible study. We do a Bible study of sorts on Sundays with Arthur and Susan, Susanna Sankati, where we get together and discuss different topics based on God's Word. And we recently did a study on the 5 baptisms in the Bible, and that one's available. And in a few days, we'll be doing another one prayerfully. So we encourage you to do that. Well, I'm still in Pennsylvania and on vacation, and Tonight I'll be working a meeting with the Deeper Walk International School of Prayer Ministry. My cohort begins again and we'll be diving into emotional healing, so you might hear something about that in the upcoming weeks as we've learned to invite the Lord into prayer sessions with clients to let, let the Lord reveal the truth behind situations that can resolve emotional pain. So the Lord's a healer and he hasn't stopped. And sometimes the means are a little different than what they were before, but we've discovered that when we invite the Lord into our, into our lives through prayer and repentance, things change. Things happen. And we encourage you to seek that out. Deeper Walk International offers a bunch of different books on listening prayer, real prayer, and spiritual warfare for that matter. So we encourage you to seek that out as I am being trained to become a certified prayer minister for Deeper Walk International. But that's tonight, and today we're going to Ohio to some big beach. So hopefully the weather will cooperate and things will be pleasant, and, uh, that the, the sky won't be white, it'll be blue. Um, we look forward to that. But before we do anything, we pray. So we do that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you, Lord, for all that you've provided for us. We thank you for your faithfulness and your mercies that are new every morning, because we need your help, Lord. We need your mercy and your grace, uh, as we go through this life. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening today, that you would come alongside them and their prayer request, and, um, come alongside them in their walk of faith, Lord, because we need you to go before us today. We need you to guide us into the things you would have us, uh, see and have us do, um, Because Lord, we, we just want to represent you and your kingdom here on the earth. We want to point the way to Jesus Christ for as many people as we can, and we want to experience your goodness continually. We thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.