James 1:14-16 “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.”
“I’m not sure about God anymore.” Sadly, I’ve heard this more than a few times over the years. People who once seemed to have a solid relationship with the Lord suddenly find themselves questioning whether or not he even exists. Digging a little deeper, I’ve found a frequent commonality among them…
They want to sin. And it’s a lot easier to sin when we dismiss moral authority that differs from our desires.
Don’t get me wrong. Many people have honest questions about God. They deserve honest answers. But when God becomes an “inconvenient truth” who gets in the way of our sinful pursuits, our “confusion” becomes the first step on a slippery slope to destruction.
It’s like “fake news.” A lot is being said these days about reporting that distorts the truth. Since we tend to gravitate toward news that favors what we want to think, we become easy targets for believing things that fit our grid, whether true or false. The danger—fake news produces fake views.
And so it is in how we relate to God. The further we move away from truth, the likelier we are to believe “fake news” about God. Fake news inevitably creates a fake view about him, making him easier to reject.
James warns the church to guard against being deceived. He cautions that once we allow a little deception to enter our thinking, it will take over. So how do we guard against it?
We begin by taking a cue from counterfeit experts. Know how they spot the fakes? They diligently study the real thing. The more we immerse ourselves in the truth, the harder it will be to justify actions countering it. When tempted, we let what the Bible says…bring us back to reality.
God is who he says he is. No amount of fake news about him will ever change his love, faithfulness and power. Let’s be on guard not to allow thinking that contradicts what the Bible says about him. Let’s not feed fake views of our Sovereign God even if the truth calls us to repentance.