Throughout this day, Americans everywhere will celebrate freedom, as well they should. It’s one of the defining principles of their nation. Yet one might ask, Of those celebrating freedom, how many are truly experiencing it?

Certainly many men and women are living the American dream. They enjoy well-paying careers and wonderful homes, thanks in large part to political liberty. But meanwhile, their “pursuit of happiness” has yet to be satisfied. The reason is that lots of people remain prisoners internally, despite their apparent success. They are bound to anxiety and depression, or a fear of losing what they’ve worked hard to possess. However liberating circumstances seem externally, we eventually learn that freedom must be realized within. But how?

The answer is Jesus Christ. Isaiah 61:1 prophesied a key aspect of Jesus’ ministry, which continues to this day: He has come to heal the brokenhearted and set captives free. When we trust Him as Savior, the chains that keep us from joy are broken. We are liberated from lies that have been programmed in our minds from an early age, and we begin to see things from God’s point of view. Then we discover that our needs, desires, and total well-being rest securely in the arms of a loving heavenly Father.

Are you feeling the weight of anxiety or anger? Look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, and remember the scriptural promise: “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). The day you trust in Him is the day He delivers you from fear and opens your eyes to who you truly are.

 The well-read collection of essays written by C.S. Lewis and compiled posthumously in the book God in the Dock was originally published in England under a different title. The book was titled Undeceptions.

 “Undeception” was the word Lewis used to describe a startling experience of awareness—moments when deception is uncovered and the cause is seen clearly from within, moments when blind spots are replaced with reality. He was taken with these awakenings or undeceptions in many of the characters of Jane Austen. In much of Austen’s work, he observes, “[T]he undeception…is the very pivot or watershed of the story.”(1)

 Lewis would unquestionably state the same of our own stories. “Undeception” was no doubt a word that fittingly described his startling experience of being brought into the kingdom of God kicking and screaming, the most reluctant convert in all England. It was that experience through which he saw himself, the world, and its creator for the rest of his life.

 Encountering God, many note the recognizing of blind spots. “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it” woke Jacob to his own deception. He didn’t wake up declaring that the God who was once absent had now appeared. He said, “God was here all along and I was the one who didn’t see it.” A friend of mine refers to pivotal encounters like Jacob’s dream as “thin spots”—moments in life where the nearness of God is nearly palpable. Other theologians describe such encounters as openings or baptisms, windows or transcendence. Still others give testimonies similar to the man born blind in ancient Jerusalem. Forced to explain to the Pharisees the unexplainable moment he had with Jesus, he mustered the only words he could think to describe it: “Only one thing I do know. I was blind but now I see” (John 9:25).

 In his book Grace Abounding, John Bunyan describes a day when he was inexplicably released from doubt and despair. While passing through a field, troubled in conscience and fearing that all was not right, the sentence fell upon his soul: “Thy righteousness is in heaven.”(2) Writes Bunyan, “I thought I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. There was my righteousness. Wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me that I lacked his righteousness, for that was ever before Him. Moreover, I saw that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made it worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself.”(3) 

 Bunyan’s encounter was for him an experience of undeception. His story is also one more example of a soul not seeking experiences of self-awareness or even experiences with God, but one seeking the Lord, his kingdom, and his holiness, and in seeking finding it all.

 Of course, this is not to be overlooked or seen as easy or even painless. A person that is willing to put even his or her vision of life into God’s hands, watching as he prepares a fearful concoction of spit and mud, is a soul that seeks God with courage. Self-deception is a difficult thing to own up to, and far too often it is easier to see the deception in others than it is to see in ourselves. The blinders we walk with through life, God in his mercy must remove. Opening our reluctant eyes, the Father shows us with his radiance the darkness we’ve been squinting in, even as God prepares us to see the great and unsearchable.  

 In Bunyan and in Lewis, in the lives of Christians throughout history, the defining characteristic of their encounters with God was their willingness (even reluctant willingness) to see the deceptions within themselves and to bring these deceptions back to the feet of the one who made them visible. God’s love and mercy are to our lives the shining undeceptions that unwearyingly move us to see.    

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, “A Note on Jane Austen” Ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 178.
(2) See Psalm 85:11b.
(3) John Bunyan, Grace Abounding (New Kensington: Whitaker House, 1993), 135.

Morning “Called to be saints.” Romans 1:7

 We are very apt to regard the apostolic saints as if they were “saints” in a

more especial manner than the other children of God. All are “saints” whom God

has called by His grace, and sanctified by His Spirit; but we are apt to look

upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same

weaknesses and temptations as ourselves. Yet in so doing we are forgetful of

this truth, that the nearer a man lives to God the more intensely has he to

mourn over his own evil heart; and the more his Master honours him in his

service, the more also doth the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day.

The fact is, if we had seen the apostle Paul, we should have thought him

remarkably  like the rest of the chosen family: and if we had talked with him, we should

have said, “We find that his experience and ours are much the same. He is more

faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than we are, but he has the selfsame

trials to endure. Nay, in some respects he is more sorely tried than ourselves.”

Do not, then, look upon the ancient saints as being exempt either from

infirmities or sins; and do not regard them with that mystic reverence which

will almost make us idolaters. Their holiness is attainable even by us. We are

“called to be saints” by that same voice which constrained them to their high

vocation. It is a Christian’s duty to force his way into the inner circle

 of saintship; and if these saints were superior to us in their attainments, as

they certainly were, let us follow them; let us emulate their ardour and

holiness. We have the same light that they had, the same grace is accessible to

us, and why should we rest satisfied until we have equalled them in heavenly

character? They lived with Jesus, they lived for Jesus, therefore they grew like

Jesus. Let us live by the same Spirit as they did, “looking unto Jesus,” and our

saintship will soon be apparent.

 

Evening “Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Isaiah 26:4

Seeing that we have such a God to trust to, let us rest upon him with all our

weight; let us resolutely drive out all unbelief, and endeavour to get rid of

doubts and fears, which so much mar our comfort; since there is no excuse for

fear where God is the foundation of our trust. A loving parent would be sorely

grieved if his child could not trust him; and how ungenerous, how unkind is our

conduct when we put so little confidence in our heavenly Father who has never

failed us, and who never will. It were well if doubting were banished from the

household of God; but it is to be feared that old Unbelief is as nimble nowadays

as when the psalmist asked, “Is his mercy clean gone forever? Will

 he be favourable no more?” David had not made any very lengthy trial of the

mighty sword of the giant Goliath, and yet he said, “There is none like it.” He

had tried it once in the hour of his youthful victory, and it had proved itself

to be of the right metal, and therefore he praised it ever afterwards; even so

should we speak well of our God, there is none like unto him in the heaven above

or the earth beneath; “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith

the Holy One.” There is no rock like unto the rock of Jacob, our enemies

themselves being judges. So far from suffering doubts to live in our hearts, we

will take the whole detestable crew, as Elijah did the prophets of

 Baal, and slay them over the brook; and for a stream to kill them at, we will

select the sacred torrent which wells forth from our Saviour’s wounded side. We

have been in many trials, but we have never yet been cast where we could not

find in our God all that we needed. Let us then be encouraged to trust in the

Lord forever, assured that his ever lasting strength will be, as it has been,

our succour and stay.

 

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.   Psalms 24:4 

Outward practical holiness is a very precious mark of grace. It is to be feared that many professors have perverted the doctrine of justification by faith in such a way as to treat good works with contempt; if so, they will receive everlasting contempt at the last great day. If our hands are not clean, let us wash them in Jesus’ precious blood, and so let us lift up pure hands unto God. But “clean hands” will not suffice unless they are connected with “a pure heart.” True religion is heart-work. We may wash the outside of the cup and the plate as long as we please, but if the inward parts be filthy, we are filthy altogether in the sight of God, for our hearts are more truly ourselves than our hands are. The very life of our being lies in the inner nature, and hence the imperative need of purity within. The pure in heart shall see God; all others are but blind bats.

The man who is born for heaven “does not lift up his soul to what is false.” All men have their joys by which their souls are lifted up. The worldling lifts up his soul in carnal delights, which are mere empty vanities; but the saint loves more substantial things; like Jehoshaphat, he is lifted up in the ways of the Lord. He who is content with husks will be reckoned with the swine. Does the world satisfy you? Then you have your reward and portion in this life; make much of it, for you will know no other joy.

“Does not swear deceitfully.” The saints are men of honor still. The Christian man’s word is his only oath; but that is as good as twenty oaths of other men. False speaking will shut any man out of heaven, for a liar shall not enter into God’s house, whatever may be his professions or doings. Reader, does the text before us condemn you, or do you hope to ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Family Reading Plan      Isaiah 66    Matthew 14