God does not deceive people

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 Scripture Reading

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked:

for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Gal.6.7

I think it would be fair to say that no one likes to be deceived. We feel cheated and manipulated when someone has misled us and wilfully abused our trust. We know inertly in our hearts that this type of behaviour is unacceptable.

As a Christian, I am confident of this. God is absolutely trustworthy; He never deceives us. In our podcasts recently, we have been considering some of God's characteristics that make him dependable and worthy of our trust. He cannot lie, He does not break promises, and He can do everything except sin. 

Let me talk to you for a moment about self-deception. It is possible to deceive yourself. Our verse today warns us of this possibility. We could ‘stick our head in the sand’ and try to pretend that we can do what we like and get away with it. However, this verse states that this would amount to deceiving ourselves, and the end result would be personally damaging. There is a principle at work here - you reap what you sow! This principle works in all spheres in life. The gap between sowing and reaping may vary depending on the situation. It is most vividly seen in the agricultural world. However, it is also true in relationships, in business and financial matters. Why then would it not be true in the spiritual world? If we give time to God, invest in things that are of spiritual value, give priority to our spiritual health, then we will reap the benefits in the long term. 

Invest your life in the things of God for His glory, and you will reap the results. If not in this life, in eternity. What a wonderful person our God is. We should praise and give glory to His name!

Do you need a miracle In 2021?

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It is an amazing fact that the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 8 says that the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but that He had nowhere to lay His head! When we just pause and think about that it is almost unbelievable, yet we must believe it because it is true. The Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son said it and we know that God cannot lie!

When we just begin to think about the statement it is amazing, the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the wealth of every mine was here and had no home. Yet it is more amazing that the Son of God was here for us! When He was here, He made an impact on so many lives, He healed and transformed people. 

One family that felt the transforming power of the Lord Jesus was a group of siblings in a poor village just outside Jerusalem called Bethany. Mary, Martha and Lazarus became followers of the Lord Jesus and He knew that their home was always open to Him. When He visited, He knew that there was always a meal, always a place to stay and that they would sit with Him and listen intently to his teaching. This was because they believed in Him, they knew that He was the Messiah, sent from God and that He had the power to forgive and through belief they knew that forgiveness of sin.

God can do anything except sin.

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Scripture Reading

James 1:13

 

Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; 

for God cannot be tempted by evil, 

nor does He Himself tempt anyone

If you were debating morals and ethics with your peer group and someone said ‘I have never done anything wrong’ you might be quite surprised and I am sure a discussion would develop. Morality and ethics are complex issues from any angle but especially when we approach it from a subjective point of view. We all have our opinions and are influenced by our ‘worldview’. 

As a Christian, I realise that my world view is often incomplete and inaccurate. Hopefully not because I am stupid but because without the word of God, I do not have access to all of the information that I need to understand the world, past present and future.

In the Bible, God has communicated to us about things that we could not know about from any other source. One amazing revelation God gives us about himself is His inability to sin. The word of God says that God has a flawless character.

This means that God is right in every respect. This covers how he acts, why he acts, matters of motive, intention etc. He is eternally without defect.  This is difficult for flawed human beings to grasp but it is true. Even when we are doing good things and behaving well a sense of pride and superiority can creep into our thinking. Even in His perfection, God is uniquely majestic and noble and yet without conceit.

We naturally find that we react and respond when tempted by sin. There is nothing in the character of God that responds to temptation. Like wood shavings set beside a magnet, there is no pull towards evil. 

It is God’s desire that we replicate His holy character in the way that we live. Give God a chance to make you like him. Spend some time with Him today. 

 

God cannot lie!

 

                                            All photographs courtesy of Unsplash

                                    Scripture Reading

 

Titus 1.2

 

‘In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began’

 

 

What a bizarre statement from a human perspective. I lie, you lie, and we all do so why assume that God would be any different. There is a core issue that we are facing here as we look at the topic of God’s total truthfulness. The issue is that God is everything that we are not. He is pure, He is perfect, He always acts within his character and He is unique compared to you and me.

 

If you like to compare versions of the bible you will see that when translating this verse some of the more modern versions say, ‘God does not lie’ (NET, LITV, NIV). Interestingly the older versions usually say he ‘cannot lie’ (RV, Darby, Wuest, Rotherham). Which is correct you might be asking. Have a look at a Strong’s Concordance’ on your phone or laptop to see what Mr Strong says about this phrase. He says that the word for a lie has a negative particle in front of it to indicate that God is not capable of lying. If you look up ‘Robertson’s Word Pictures’, he tells us that the statement really means that God is the ‘non-lying God’. God is not in the business of lying; it is out of character for Him and he just does not do it.

What does this mean for me? I can trust everything he has ever said! You’ll have a good day after thinking this one through.