I love the fact that God created us for relationship.  First and foremost, a relationship with Him.  But he also created us for each other.  We are to encourage each other, pray for each other, support each other, love one another, serve each other, hold one another accountable and confess to each other. 

I don’t like confession, but I love the power that comes from confession.  As we talked about on Sunday, we confess to God for forgiveness (1 John 1:9) and we confess to each other for healing (James 5:16). 

I’ve talked with a lot of people over the years and many think, “as long as I confess it to God I’m good!”  And for a while they are good, but after a short while, they fall back into sin again because they haven’t experienced real healing.
 
For some of you, the reason you're trapped, you've prayed to God over and over again, but you've never done the second confession and let God's people in to help you heal to help hold you accountable.  We need to confess, “Here’s where I am failing, hold me accountable, and pray for me.”  “When I start to slide back, kick my tail, get in my face, encourage me, love me, build me back up.  Stand between me and the sin that is overtaking me.”
 
Do you love yourself enough to find healing for yourself?  Do you love your fellow Christian enough to stand between them and the sin that is difficult to deal with?
 
Let’s be the body of Christ for each other and help each other grow in our relationships.

Pastor Dave

I was visiting with someone this week about self-deception, and I told them that I still think of myself as I see Micah, a 20 year old, good looking dude that is strong and can leap buildings in a single bound.  I can see the person I am in the mirror, but then walk away and want to think I’m still the studly 20 year old.

Self-deceit can mask who we really are.  The longer we view ourselves through a distorted lens the more likely we are to believe a distorted truth.   This can lead to some very dangerous sin issues in our lives.  David said in Psalm 36:2-3, “For in his own eyes, he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.  The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful, he has ceased to be wise and to do good.”

My family used to watch American Idol.  If you watched it, they would highlight a lot of people that thought they could sing but really couldn’t.  How is that possible?  Distorted views of ourselves.

But when it comes to sin, if we cannot detect our sin, that which we cannot detect, we cannot hate.  If we cannot detect or hate our sin, then we live in ways that destroy us and destroy the people around us.  Many of us, we flatter ourselves and we don't realize that we are living in sin.

We talked on Sunday about three biblical truths that can help us overcome self-deception.
1. Pray – Psalm 139:23-24
2. Listen – Proverbs 15:31-32
3. Change – James 1:22

So many people listen to the Word and then do whatever they want.  Don't do that!  Don't merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves.  What are we going to do?  We are going to "do what it says."
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Let’s continue to work on dropping the mask of self-deception and ask God to help you live free from the lie.