Spiritual Discernment

Self-Deception

The foundation of spiritual discernment lies in the condition of our own hearts. If the fog and mists of deception cloud the verity of our own hearts the divine enablement to perceive error will be greatly diminished. True discernment will be as real and as sharp without as the objectivity with which we allow Him to examine our own heart. As we are honest within it allows us to have understanding and to see clearly the deception without. Purity of heart and freedom from our own agendas must be a reality in order for us to see peril in the lives of others. Obedience is God’s provision to free us from the contagion of self. It is there that presumption and delusion are met with the reality of our own condition. Those who never walk in the “faith” they hold live in a surreal world; their beliefs have never been challenged in the real world and the confidence of their standing in God is an illusion. Jesus sent out the disciples to walk in the substance of that which he gave them. It was in their actual handling of His life within the context of their own experiences that they learned their own inadequacy and their dependence on Him.

In our world today many Christians have not stepped out into the discovery of who Christ is in them. The knowledge about Him is not tempered by a life of obedience. It is a knowledge which is ethereal, unproven and conceptual. Lack of real and personal involvement in the things of the Son is in itself a deception that prevents the power of God from being revealed in the world around us. The deception of self is the greatest of all deceptions and requires diligence to prevent it.

“Keep thy heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23

Brian Troxel