Living a Lie

We are continuing with the message ‘Propaganda versus Truth’, this time looking at the consequences of such a lifestyle as well as understanding how we can live it unconsciously.

There are clear signs of what one is listening to. Our lifestyle is such a giveaway that many times we could be the only ones unaware that we have lost it. Let me give a verse from off the topic to put this across.

Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1Timothy 3:7)

Why does a congregational minister need a good testimony from outside his arena of service? It is because that is the place people have no blinders on. They are the ones who see you in your natural environment. They will therefore have an accurate assessment of your life outside the limelight that is the congregational setting.

They hear the words you shout at your children when they misbehave. They know your reaction when the shopkeeper or tout gives you the wrong change. They have seen you react to a neighbor who soiled the linen you had hung to dry. They interact with your children and know the kind of parent you are. In short they can accurately tell the kind of information you are living by. This is different from the church setting when the whole family is at their best for the two or so hours their service will require.

If the only conversation you can have with your neighbors revolves around current affairs and movies, they know that you share the same source with them. Of course it means that you feed more on propaganda than the truth if you claim to be a believer. And you will not be able to convince them that you operate from orders of another headquarter as you appear to know too much about their headquarters.

If you get your dress code and fashion sense from movie stars as opposed to the Bible, then it is a clear giveaway that you are feeding on propaganda. If your language is as free flowing as it is packaged with earthly banter, then do not deceive yourself. If you are more conversant with the workings of evil strongholds than you are of heaven, it is easy to know who you listen to more. If your prayer consists of resisting this and binding that instead of releasing this and accessing that, it is very probable that you are combining sources. If someone just needs to attend your prayer meeting to know all the happenings, do not be shocked if you are told that your prayer meeting is a rumor mill operating from propaganda.

If your testimony’s currency dates to when you first believed; if the validity and potency of your calling relies more on when you were called as opposed to a continuous and vibrant testimony that is consistent and current, it may be the clearest evidence yet that you lost it ages ago and are operating on deadness to gain currency.

If you rely more on your mastery of Biblical languages than revelation in your sermons or writing, if the reason you use a myriad of verses in your sermons are to look for relevance instead of communicating God’s message, then it is easy to assume that you lost God’s voice long ago.

If your spiritual status is more important than your ministry impact, if they must recognize your presence and offer you special treatment for you to minister, you are completely different from Christ who came to  serve and give His life as a ransom for all.

If you excuse sin instead of confronting it you can be sure that God’s voice is foreign to your experience. If you find yourself explaining away sin instead of repenting, then it is clear that the Holy Spirit is a text book topic in your life as He convicts us of sin. If in your preaching you are more interested in making people feel better as opposed to challenging them to pursue holiness, it is evidence that your heart disconnected with God’s very long ago. If you have no problem receiving an offering or support from someone you suspect (many times even know) whose lifestyle is questionable, I will again say that you lost the network of what you claim is your source or headquarter too long ago that you even forgot how to identify a voice from there.

If a lie is a defensive weapon, if it comes out naturally in your conversations, if you do not think twice before and after an ‘innocent white lie’ it is possible that you operate from another manual than God’s. If pretension and exaggerations are what make your speeches or sermons irresistible, then it is clear that the one you represent is not the author of the Bible. If you are different from the person bearing your name on social media platforms it is very easy for your father to be the father of lies.

If you are defeatist in your expectations of the people you lead and are content to walk with a limp, then you really are not representing Christ who won against death.

Let me explain. As I have talked to young people about the importance of waiting for marriage before getting involved sexually, I encounter many ministers who argue thus;

‘Since the youth cannot stay without engaging in premarital sex …’

They therefore advocate the devil’s prescription; using condoms, birth control, and some who are part of the problem could advocate and even fund abortion because some of those fetuses would provide evidence of their mischief. In other words their defeated lives are used to explain away sin in others as they also sleep with those small girls. Yet they still claim a connection with Christ who came to overcome sin!

That is what anyone will call living a lie. They are either so deceived that they are unable to see the visible dichotomy in their lives or they know what they are doing, serving the devil yet pretending to be serving God.

He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Mark 7: 6, 7)

Worse still is that they do not really care to know what God says. They do not read the word to know what God’s word says about their lifestyles.

The reality is that a young person connected to Christ can wait for marriage before engaging in sex. And it has been so for a long time. From Joseph even before there was a Bible to Joseph who slept on the same bed with Mary for months without having sex with her before she bore the Christ. We were also young and overcame the pressures our children go through without defiling ourselves.

For your information, there are enough young people who even today take God seriously enough to keep themselves pure for God because they know God enough to trust Him for power to overcome the hormonal surge. You just need to look around. And their lives are complete as they do not pretend to stand for what they do not believe.

And sexuality is not the only place I see enough people experiencing victory once they agree with what God says and refuse the folly of what the world uses their best argument to push. From marriage to corruption to ministry an outsider can very easily sort those sold out to Christ from those who are feeding off a lie packaged as Christianity and ministry.

I remember a term people used to describe believers in our youth when a testimony became acceptable. Before then, saying that one was saved invited resistance and even persecution (that many times was scorn from peers at a time when peer opinion carried much weight). Of course after enduring that successfully, we gained respect from our persecutors as happens everywhere else. Then people would want to identify with us and what we stood for. That is when salvation became a fashion statement. Again it is consistent with the growth of the church throughout history. And I say that as one who ministered with some pioneers of the East Africa revival a few generations ago.

Once radical obedience gains acceptance, it goes without say that tares join in as there is no sacrifice involved as was with the pioneers. And that is where confusion reigns as we will then have people with a foreign agenda joining the ranks.

The statement was that there were people who were saved and others who were really saved as the distinction between the two types of believers.

This is the reason for the message about propaganda and living a lie. It will help us know whether what we profess is what we represent. And it is so important because our eternal destination depends on it.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7: 21- 27)

Otherwise we might be so comfortable believing that we are on our way to heaven when we will never lift our foot off the earth when the day of reckoning comes.

And we have two groups in this text; the first being with those who started with a connection to the point that they started experiencing spiritual manifestations who lost the connection through a comfortable life devoid of obedience yet continued enjoying spiritual validation and the second being those who thought God’s word required their concession and so chose how to best obey and maintain their materialistic lifestyles.

The  fact that the first lost their way to heaven after being so proficient in their visible manifestations means that they were living a lie, a lie they had convinced themselves was the truth. The other lived their  lives on their terms yet also visibly appearing to be  living for God  which is not much different.

Is your life consistent with your confession?