This is the eighth article in a series entitled Wonderful Counseling. I sometimes use other names for this ministry, such as Personal Prayer Ministry and Biblical Healing and Deliverance. The adjective "wonderful" is used because Jesus is the "wonderful Counselor" of Isaiah 9:6. This ministry attempts to make room for Jesus to personally counsel people by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit, with the human ministers acting as facilitators. This makes it different from most counseling. It is highly effective at teaching the recipient how to hear the voice of the Spirit and to receive his life giving words.
Let’s begin with a beautiful verse of Scripture that King David wrote just after admitting to Nathan the prophet that he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband and his friend to cover it up.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Psalms 51:6 (ESV)
Satan is a liar and master deceiver. He spews out deception as a means of misrepresenting God, subverting truth, and destroying people. Thankfully, God lovingly counters Satan’s every move. Whereas the Lord is never surprised by events, Satan never anticipates God’s wisdom and creative responses. Evil is clever but not wise. It may secure initial gains but always loses the war.
Since sin deformed humanity from the inside out by severing our connection to God in the spirit, God’s salvation works from the inside out, too. What our Lord does inside us who believe via the new birth is greater than anything Adam and Eve ever knew.
God, Immanuel, comes to live inside us! After giving us new birth in the spirit, God engages in transforming His people from the inside out by his Spirit.
When the eternal Logos, the Divine Son of God, became a human being (John 1:14), he called himself “the Truth.”
Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6 (NASB)
Jesus the Messiah maintained complete integrity between his inner thoughts, words, and actions, even though it eventually cost Him His life. He was a fearless embodiment and pursuer of truth.
A disciple is a person whose eyes have been opened through revelation to understand that Jesus is God’s Truth incarnate, the risen Messiah King. Disciples believe this in their hearts, confess it with their mouths, commit to a lifelong allegiance to Jesus and the truth, tell others about him, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the process of inner transformation.
Being a disciple means being committed to living according to God’s truth.
Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32 (NET1)
Because of the way inheritance works, all of us received from Adam a default predisposition to being deceivers and liars. Jacob in Genesis has always been one of my favorite Bible characters, not because of who he was and what he did, but because, in spite of his many faults, failures, and sins, God still loved and remained faithful to him. Jacob’s name means deceiver and usurper. He is a picture of every person who comes into the world. Over time God changed him so radically that he was even given a new name – Israel. We serve an amazingly merciful and generous God!
Deception is so deeply ingrained in the human race that it takes an act of God to change us.
We must be spiritually reborn to start the process of transformation. This process continues over a lifetime. It involves God restructuring how we think about him, ourselves, and his Word.
Repentance is a word that literally means to change the mind. God works in us to change the way we think so that our lives can become conformed to truth.
Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God — what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 (NET1)
God gave Jacob a name that exposed his lack of integrity. Imagine being named, “Liar” or “Deceiver”. God is not afraid of telling it like it is, especially when he has a plan to redeem and change the person. Along the way, through God’s dealings, Jacob was forced to take a long hard look at his own deceptiveness. If we commit to following truth, God will also make us confront our sin, too. Today anyone named Jacob is a reminder of how God can take the most crooked of people and make them spiritual fathers.
God loves to force us into a corner from which there is no escape except by engaging in a wrestling match with Truth.
Jacob wrestled with the angel at the river Jabbok, and God prevailed in his life. The result was that Jacob became a prince with God and a great man in God’s kingdom. The same will happen to us if we commit to engaging the Truth.
Embracing truth is not easy. In fact, it can be one of the most challenging things we will ever do.
People often run from truth because we are afraid of it. We don’t want to face the truth about ourselves or God because we may think it is too painful or scary. According to Jesus, people prefer the darkness of deception to the brilliant light of truth.
And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. John 3:19-20 (NLT)
If we want to experience the freedom offered in Christ, we will need to squarely face truth with the help of the Holy Spirit.
We need not fear the One called the Truth who chose to die for us. He has no desire to destroy us with truth. Instead he wants us to be free because we embrace truth on the inside.
The only way we can properly relate to God and experience true freedom is through the avenue of repentance, which is the process by which we reject the lie and embrace the Truth.
When we admit that we are wrong and God is right we have begun the repentance journey. We make the decision to reject deception and become honest with God, ourselves, and one another. Repentance is the opposite of hypocrisy, which is when we pretend to be something we are not in order to look good to others and hide our sin.
One of the scariest things any person can do is become honest.
That is why people become so angry when their sin is exposed. We usually go into cover-up mode (denial) to try to keep damage to a minimum. Friendships can be damaged or lost by being honest if one of the parties is unwilling to embrace truth. That is why King David’s response to the prophet was so refreshing. When Nathan declared, “You are the man!”, exposing David as an adulterer and murderer, David responded, “I have sinned!” (2 Samuel 12:1-15) How rare is that? How many times have you seen someone instantly and openly admit a transgression?
Deception is rampant in society and honesty rare. but, in the church, it is supposed to be the norm.
Politics survives and thrives on lies. Hollywood is built on the unreal product it presents. Some of the biggest blockbuster movies depend on special effects to transport the viewer into a surreal world where God does not exist and sin often has no apparent consequences. But life is not like that at all. Life is built on the timeless truth of sowing and reaping. It eventually brings us face to face with God’s truth. We will either surrender to it or be destroyed by it. There is no escaping a confrontation with the God of truth.
A life based on sin and deception will always lead us into a dead-end alley from which there no escape except by admitting our sin and accepting God’s truth.
Jacob was forced into a confrontation with his older brother Esau, something he had avoided for years. He feared what Esau might do to him, because he had previously tricked his brother years before and taken his blessing and birthright. God forced Jacob to confront his fears, and, by so doing, to confront his own deceptiveness, all within the protection of God’s love. The result was that Jacob overcame his fears and gained a new status with his brother and God. He no longer had to skulk about in fear, but could walk in boldness and freedom. The same can happen for us if we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth.
God will help us confront things we have run from in the past so that we can experience Christ’s freedom. The more we grow in our knowledge of how much God loves us, the more we will trust him enough to be honest.
Prayer
Dear God, I have run from truth many times, but now I want to fully embrace it, no matter how scary it seems, because I know you love me and want me to be free on the inside. Jesus, thank you for dying and rising for me. Thank you for loving me even when I was your enemy. Thank you for being patient with me and helping me to get to this point. I rely on you to help me move forward in my truth journey. Come, Holy Spirit. You are the one who gives me the strength and ability to live for Jesus. You are the Spirit of truth, my friend, and my God. Have your way in my life. Make me a lover of truth. Amen.
