The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17:9I am proficient at self-deception. My judgement is not just ill-informed, but deliberately misdirected. The sad part is that I do this to myself, for lots of different reasons. Sometimes I want to believe that the way I am now is adequate. Sometimes I want to believe where I am headed is the way I should go. Sometimes I want to be comfortable and avoid choices that would conflict with that comfort. In all cases, my heart is not a reliable guide for direction. As Pastor Paul says, truth is the only basis for choice, not feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, he says, but our choices can be.
2 Samuel 11. The story of David and Bathsheba is a famous one. It starts with David convincing himself that he doesn't need to be out with the army (vs. 1), then follows with lust after the wife of one of his best soldiers who is doing his job with the army (vs. 2-3), then taking that wife and using the army to kill her husband (vs. 15). But it is clear by the end of the story, when the prophet Nathan confronts him (12:13), that David had, up to that point, come to some measure of self-deception which allowed him to avoid the extent of his guilt or his role in the matter. How many times must God use drastic means to introduce us to our own failings?
Acts 24:24-25. In this case, Felix listens to Paul's defense against the charges brought by those Jews angry with his ministry. During his defense, Paul describes the gospel, including the judgment to come and it says that Felix was afraid. Rather than responding to the truth, he sends Paul away, promising to listen again to Paul when there is a convenient time. Well, it turns out there is never a convenient time and, after two years, Felix is replaced with another official. Felix's fear (perhaps of judgment) leads him to deliberately avoid hearing the truth. How many times have we avoided people so that we could avoid the unpleasant truth?
But then, in Acts 2, we see a different response to feelings. Here the crowds have just witnessed a miracle of God (the tongues of fire and the speaking in many languages) and Peter speaks. It says that they were "cut to the heart". What was the crowds response? Did they leave? Did they attack Peter? No, it says they wanted to know what to do? When Peter told them, they did it and the thousands came into the church. Their feelings prompted them to act, but truth gave them their direction.
Feelings prompt you to act. Truth gives you direction. Anger. Bitterness. Disappointment. Attraction. Excitement. Amazement. All feelings. All can be deceptive. Choices must be made on something more reliable. The Bible provides a consistent vision of God's truth to use when making choices. What will you choose.
(from notes on a sermon by Pastor Paul Ko, 16 January 2011)
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