god on Deception

The most insidious deception in human history is the lie that says, “God is against you.”

We may find it hard to believe Jeremiah’s words that the heart is “deceitful above all things.” We would rather look outward and think, Yes, others may be quite foolish and misguided. But I have a ...

Father, we speak the truth about who we are apart from you. Paul summarizes our condition in Romans 3 using the truth found in the sacred writings of the Psalter and Prophets, There is no one righteo...

John Chrysostom, the eloquent Church Father, had incurred the wrath of the Byzantine (aka Roman) Emperor Arcadius. Enraged, the emperor consulted his counselors on how to punish the powerful preacher....

Gracious God, our hearts are often divided between what is good and what is evil. Not one of us is pure in heart yet we long to have a whole heart. Where there is hypocrisy in our life, please n...

Context Text Clues While all pericopes, of course, need to be read in context, sometimes we get clear textual clues that we are to do this. In this week’s text we get that by way of a bookended “fo...

Context Text Clues While all pericopes, of course, need to be read in context, sometimes we get clear textual clues that we are to do this. In this week’s text we get that by way of a bookended “fo...

Loving God, we will betray you; yet you invite us to your table. We will deny you; yet you give us yourself in love. We will fail to pray with you; yet you pray for us. We will crucify you; yet ...

Behold, the Lord’s arm is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face f...

Lord of Hosts, We come before you today in a tone of solemnity. We recognize that while it was Judas who betrayed you for 30 pieces of silver, that we often betray you as well. We know what is right,...

If man tries to grasp at truth of himself, he tries to grasp at it a priori . But in that case he does not do what he has to do when the truth comes to him. He does not believe. If he did, he wou...

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

A Christian counselor once commented on people hiding from God. “Think about it. The very first people in the history of the world, Adam and Eve, hid from God when they realized their nakedness after ...

Epithets can chip away at the image of God in us. Name-calling and identity theft are felonious offenses against divinity and humanity. Blasphemy. Those of us who have been victims of identity theft o...

Reflection “I took the money, I spiked your drink, you miss too much these days if you stop to think… waves of regret and waves of joy, I reached out for the one I tried to destroy,” sings Bono of Ju...

Gracious God, in our desire to achieve success and recognition, we have disregarded honesty and integrity in our speech and actions. Forgive us for our shortcuts, white lies, and dishonesty. Help us b...

It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into nothing. Murder is no better than lies if lying does the trick.

As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.

Scripture also speaks of “discernment of spirits” and encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” This aspect of discernment helps us to distinguish the real from the phony, ...

Father God, we confess that the actions of our hands do not often match the words of our mouths. We say one thing and do another. We give you praise and curse a friend, we sing songs of thanksgiving a...

God wants to feed his people. In keeping the one tree from them, God protected Adam and Eve. When they broke table fellowship with God, they suspected that God was withholding something good, that thi...

Any manifestation that reveals Jesus’ true identity occurs because the power of God is at work upon the eyes, ears, and hearts of the recipients

Prayer of Adoration Great God our Father: You are good and You are strong. You are faithful and true, and You won’t tempt or lie to us. In a world that appeals to our sinful cravings and dominated b...

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us f...

Parables are chisels to create space and enable people to see and understand the in-breaking of the kingdom in a first-century world.

Gracious God, in our desire to achieve success and recognition, we have disregarded honesty and integrity in our speech and actions. Forgive us for our shortcuts, white lies, and dishonesty. Help us b...

Parables were the means Jesus used most frequently to explain the kingdom of God and to show the character of God and the expectations that God has for humans.

In sovereign love, you, O God, created the world good And made everyone equally in your image, Male and female, of every race and people, To live as one community. But we rebel against you; we hid...

We are complicit and we do not even realize it, O Holy God. Every day we participate in systems of idolatry, and we promote the captivity of a nation to gods. We have bought the subtle lies of our cul...

Karl Barth wrote that, “God is always a mystery. Revelation is always revelation in the full sense of the word or it is not revelation” ( CD  I.8.2). God’s revelation, to Barth, always exists in a dia...