Definition What is deception, we may ask. Deception has to do with the deliberate peddling of falsehood. It comes from the word deceive which means to trick someone into believing what is false or bad. This means that anything that is not true, anything that is dishonest, anything that is false but which we tell others with the intention of tricking them into thinking that it is true is deception.

The Practice of so Called Men/Women of God We read a lot about those who call themselves Pastors but deceive people. The other day, I read in the papers that someone calling himself a Pastor had impregnated a woman and her daughter. In both instances, the man had deceived them into thinking that the Holy Spirit had told him to sleep with them. I am sure some of you will shake your heads in disgust wondering how this could ever happen, but believe it or not it did happen.

There are many instances we can cite. There are even Pastors who take over the cars of some of their members telling them that the Holy Spirit had revealed that they would have accidents and in order to exorcise the cars they the Pastors would use the vehicles for a while until they drive away the evil spirits.

Others bring enmity between families, declaring that people are witches and wizards, etc. We also hear of those who receive large sums of money from members on the pretext that they are going to get them visas, etc.

There are so many other acts of deception, often ridiculous which many of us can discount. Unfortunately, there are many other forms of deception that are more subtle and more grievous. They see any teachings that do not agree with the absolute standard of God's truth is deception. The truth is, it is only Jesus Christ who reveals God the Father. In fact the Bible says in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God and then later in verse 19 we read that God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. The Truth of God

If we do not want to be deceived then we should know Jesus Christ who is the Truth and be filled with the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth and teaching us the truth, and helping us to live in the truth. Jesus Himself has warned us to be careful about being deceived as we read Matthew 7:15-20. Jesus is telling us to be wary of prophets, pastors, preachers, evangelists, Bible teachers, etc. who may look innocent, use religious language, sound spiritual and so on but who are liars because they themselves do not live righteous and holy lives. They do not even bother to try to live in obedience to God. Such are the people who will even seek to have an affair with other peoples' wives – vulnerable and gullible women who believe everything that they are told – 2 Tim.3:6. Jesus is saying that those who truly belong to Him live in obedience to Him. It is not that such people are perfect. No, it means that the driving passion of true children of God is to live in obedience to God's Word. Such people know their own weaknesses and so they rely on the power of God for help. They are honest and truthful in what they preach and how they live. Jesus again warns us to be careful about false prophets and teachers in the last days. He says that many people will claim to be Him but we should not be deceived – Matt. 24:5.

What Causes Deception?
Let us look at some of the reasons why we get deceived.

(i) It is important for us to know that Satan is the arch deceiver. He is still doing what he started in the Garden of Eden, – his main intention is to draw us away from God. The good news however is that Christ Jesus has destroyed his works – 1 John 3:8. He is still busy though and so there are some things that we do that help him in his attempts to deceive us.

(ii) Sometimes too, we ourselves allow ourselves to be deceived because we do not want to live up to the demands of our Father. We do not want the truth to work in our lives and so we give room for the enemy to deceive us. Sometimes we know something we are doing is bad but since we like it, we seek out the counsel of friends or even ask for prayers. Alas, we have some pastors who will justify our wrongdoings. They will tell us that human beings are too weak to live the way God wants.

(iii) Satan appeals to our flesh – he encourages us to prefer feelings to faith; he would deceive us to hold on to tradition rather than to the truth of God. The enemy encourages us to exalt reason – our intellect - above God's truth. Otherwise how can people even say that God did not create the world and that planet earth came about through a big bang and that human beings evolved from apes? How can anybody want to worship created things rather than the Creator of all things? How can anybody say that men sleeping with other men and women sleeping with other women is natural? But alas that is how it is. The Bible teaches us that we can be deceived or we can deceive ourselves.

Beware!
Let us look at some of the things that can lead to deception or even self-deception. Pride

Pride here means having too high an opinion about our own importance and superiority. Pride exalts self above God and above all others. Pride means that we oppose the Sovereignty of God. It is only deception that can make anyone think that he or she is better than others and even better than God. The Bible says that God opposes the proud – 1 Peter 5:5-6 – Young men (women), in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” We need to be humble so that we will not be deceived by pride into thinking we are better than we really are.

Self–Dependence
When we think we can depend on ourselves instead of on God, we are deceiving ourselves. Jesus clearly teaches in John 15:5 that apart from Him we can do nothing. We have no wisdom of our own, no strength of our own. It is God who gives us all these things and so we must find ourselves in God and depend on Him for all things. Any teaching that says that we can develop ourselves to be God is false. It is deception to think that we can live apart from God or that what we know, what we do, what we achieve is by or own intellect, our own power, and our own wisdom. Trusting in Worthless Things

The world measures success and wealth in riches and material possession but believers must not do that. We should hold loosely to material things. Material things and riches are not evil in themselves but they should not master us. It is total deception to think that the measure of our success or acceptance in God's sight is by the possessions we have. Jesus says in Luke 12:15 that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions. We also read in Job 15:31 that it is useless to trust in material things. We should rather focus on the kingdom of God – that is what we should trust in to avoid being deceived.

To Be Continued! STAY BLESSED! Remember to tune in to Sunny – Tuesdays 5:30am; Asempa – Saturdays 5:30 & Unique – Saturdays 7:30pm for our radio bible study. Source: Ms. Joyce Aryee - Ghanaian Chronicle