Too much of a good thing

Most of us won’t often be tempted to commit obvious sins such as armed robbery, adultery, murder etc. Satan knows that we will recognize the flagrant wrong in such temptations and refuse to act on them. In stead, his tactic is to entice us to push some thing good beyond the boundary of the will of God until it becomes sin. He treats us like the proverbial frog in the pot of water: gradually turning up the heat of temptation, hoping we don’t notice that we are approaching the boundary of God’s will and jump out before something good becomes a sin.
Paul writes: "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything (1 Corinthians 6:12). Everything is good and lawful for us because we are free from sin and no longer under the condemnation of law. But also knew that if we irresponsibly floorboard our lives in any of these good and lawful directions we will eventually run the red light of God’s will, that is sin.
The following statements reveal the sinful results in a number of areas where we are tempted to take the good things that God created the boundary of God’s will:
 physical rest becomes laziness
 ability to profit becomes avarice and greed
 enjoyment of life becomes intemperance
 physical pleasure becomes sensuality
 interest in the material possessions of others becomes covetousness
 enjoyment of food becomes gluttony
 self-care becomes selfishness
 self-respect becomes conceit
 communication becomes gossip
 carefulness becomes fear
 cautiousness becomes unbelief
 judgment becomes criticism
 self-protection becomes dishonesty

“Beware of Self-deception”

We are all going through an ‘interesting’ and unprecedented experience as well!!! It may be because we miss each other so badly or because we do not understand the logic of uncertainty. Uncertainty adds splendor to the mystical equations of life. I do believe that uncertainty carries God’s grace in an indefinable fashion.
If I tempted you, you would know it. If I accused you, you would know it. But if I deceived you, you would not know it. If you knew you were being deceived, then you would not no longer be deceived. Eve was deceived because she believed a lie. Self-deception is one of the primary avenues through which Satan will attempt to dissuade us from God’s truth and deceives us into believing his lies. There are more than a few ways in which we can betray ourselves:
1. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (1John 1:8)
N.T.Anderson opines: “We are not sinless saints, we are saints who sin” We are not sin, but sin is possible for us and resides in our mortal bodies (Rom 6:12). In 1 John 1:8 we read: “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”. It challenges us to be aware of a discrepancy between our identity in Christ and our behaviour. Any attempt to take this potential incongruity for granted is self-deception itself.
2. If our lives don’t reflect love/truth/justice/hope, we deceive ourselves (James 1:22)
Often we preach and teach against the very sins we are committing ourselves. The content and crux of our faith is the unconditional and unreserved love of God in Christ. In our social life and Church life, we are bound to walk by our faith. That is to live out by the quintessence of our faith. It is nothing but radiating and disseminating the fragrance of God’s love. Let people around know that we are genuinely engaged in the process of growing unto the stature of Christ. To profess a faith as if it were true in our lives when it is not is to live a lie, and we will be deceiving ourselves (James 1:22: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves)..
3. If we do not control our tongues, we deceive ourselves (James 1:26)
There is nothing that grieves God more than when we slander/ defame/ abuse people more willingly than building them up. We are to edify one another in what we say and thereby give grace to those hear us (Eph 4:29-30). If our language/tongue/speech is out of our control, we are fooling ourselves to believe that we have our spiritual life together (James 1:26: If any one thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain).


4. If we think we are something we are not, we deceive ourselves (Gal 6:3)
Galatians 6:3 (“For if any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself) obviously instructs us not to think of ourselves more highly (inflated self understanding) than we ought to think. It does not mean that we should not have a positive self-understanding. The lives we live, the talents we possess, and the gifts we have received are the expressions of God’s grace. Never take credit for what God has generously provided; rather rejoice in doing the will of God.

5. If we think we will not reap what we sow, we deceive ourselves (Gal 6:7)
In Galatians 6:7 we read: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”. As ‘churchians’ (courtesy to the Sadhu Sundar Sing’s coinage, “Churchianity”) we sometimes think that we are exempted from this eternal law, but we are not. We will have to live with the consequences of our words and deeds.

Undetected and unacknowledged sin is like a cancer cell. If self-deception is identified at an early stage, the prognosis is good. Let us always remember self-deception is dangerous!!

Shepherd one another!

Church as the body of Christ shares and participates in the Holiness of God (1Peter 2:9). It is a distinctive possibility to grow unto the stature of Christ. So it demands growing. Priesthood is understood in two ways: ‘representative priesthood’ and ‘mediatory priesthood”. The former means priest as the representative of the people of God. In this understanding, neither priestly function nor priesthood is exclusively confined to an ordained person. Priestly responsibilities are distributed among members of the ‘body of Christ’ (1Peter 2:9. Cf. I cor. 12). Priest represents the pattern of shepherding and giving leadership to the priestly function of the Church. Hence, the hierarchical distinction between clergy and laity is functional rather than theological.
But the latter considers priest as the mediator between God and people. It is to be understood that all members of the church are called to exercise the priestly function in diverse spheres of life. It would certainly make the body of Christ more dynamic. In other words, it means that we are called to shepherd each other. Unless we show ‘love and grace of a shepherd’ (John 10:10-15) in our relationships, we cease to become an authentic community of genuine shepherds.
Apostle Peter writes extensively in one of his letters to counterfeits who operate within the Church: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction”(2 Peter 2:1). In fact the fake shepherds camouflage themselves as agents of righteousness. They may entice us into their deceptive slogans: “And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled” (1Peter 2:2). We “follow their sensuality”, when we promote performance and appearance over against integrity, transparency and simplicity. The biblical criteria for validating the life of a shepherd are truth and righteousness. The counterfeits malign both.
Peter goes on to reveal two ways by which we can make out intruders (cf. Galatians 1:7) and false/pseudo shepherds who operate within the Church. First, they will sooner or later reveal their decadence, indulging “the flesh in its corrupt desires” (1Peter 2:10).Their immorality may not be easy to spot, but it will ultimately surface in their lives (2Corinthians 11:13-15). Second, they “despise authority” and are “daring, self-willed” (1Peter 2:10). They won’t submit themselves to the ecclesiastical authority. Instead, they will pick up their people who will simply rubber-stamp anything they want to do.
There are three Old Testament leadership roles which have functional equivalents in the Church: Prophets (preaching and teaching), Priests (shepherding) and Kings (administration). But functional counterparts in the Church cannot be clinically separated. Only in Jesus we find the perfection of occupying three roles in chorus. I strongly believe that all of us have got the responsibility of engaging these three roles. We are a community of shepherds. Display the mind and spirit of a shepherd. Shepherd one another!