HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU ARE DECEIVED

Believers are warned strongly against being deceived. To be deceived is to believe something is true when, in fact, it is false. We can be deceived by other people or Satan, or we can deceive ourselves. The thing about being deceived is that one doesn't know he is being deceived. If he did, it wouldn't be deception. Someone emailed me an excellent question this week: "How does one know that he is deceived?" One can honestly believe his hair is all in place and that he looks great. He is deceived. Others can see that a piece of his hair is sticking up crazily and bouncing around at odd angles. But, there is a way that he can discover that he is deceived about his hair. He can look in a mirror. Suddenly, he is aware that he has been walking around thinking his hair was perfecto but all the while it was mussed. God's Word is that mirror. If a deceived person will hear and read the Word of God, the Word will be a mirror showing him where he is, not where he thought he was. The caveat here, James tell us, is that he not only hears the Word, but does it. If he doesn't act on what he has heard, the revelation that he is being deceived is fleeting. The deception closes back upon him. He may have been deceived by others or Satan, but by not acting on the Word, he walks away deceiving himself: "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." (Jas 1:22-24). There is another way for one to know he is deceived. Suppose the man with the bad hair day isn't around a mirror. He is walking around thinking every hair is in place. Good friends will tell him. "Hey, your hair is messed up." At his trust in their word, the deception is gone. He can get his hair right. Godly people who know the Word can tell us we are deceived. If they do, we should take their word for it. Is your hair all in place? Or do you have a strand sticking out catching everybody's attention? No? Are you sure?