2 Thessalonians 2:10 “They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
“Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith,” says one of C.S. Lewis’ characters in his book, The Great Divorce. The process of “allowing ourselves to drift” springs into action whenever we want to believe self-serving lies. It is a natural progression that can only be stopped when we intentionally refuse to yield.
A battle resides within the soul of each of us. Our fallen nature bends toward justification of our actions, including the bad ones. We have to resist the currents of rationalization or we’ll eventually be swept so far off course that we will come to believe the lie. But no matter how strong our belief, a lie remains a lie, and we will not be spared from the consequences of false thinking.
I remember a woman we met years ago when we were living in Florida. She and her husband were evangelists who traveled throughout the south. One day she said God told her she was going to marry a doctor. She allowed this thought to take such a strong hold on her, that in spite of its glaring contradiction to Scripture, she divorced her husband and married a doctor, who by the way, had been traveling with the couple.
As preposterous as this situation sounds, I believe, in Lewis’ words, our willingness to accept “every half-conscious solicitation from our desires” has never been greater. If we don’t anchor ourselves in truth, the waves of a self-absorbed culture will eventually capsize us. We’ll reach the point where we no longer even recognize the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11).
So are you resisting the drift?
- the drift toward believing the worst about people who have hurt you?
- the drift toward softening Biblical standards so you don’t come across as irrelevant?
- the drift toward not confronting sin in someone for fear of being rejected?
- the drift toward compromising sin in your own life?
Don’t let yourself be deceived. You have a choice. A choice that carries eternal consequences. A choice that begins with studying the truth found in the Word of God and praying for courage…
Courage to to resist the drift.