I’ve been thinking a lot lately about deception─how it happens, why it happens, especially to Christians. Webster says “to deceive is to cause (someone) to believe something that is not true.” Hmmm… This definition begins with the assumption that there is such a thing as truth. So, as one of my classmates asked me at a high school reunion years ago, “What is truth?” In a culture that is prone to say, “My truth is not your truth and your truth isn’t necessarily my truth” that can be difficult to define. However, Jesus said in his prayer in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by the truth; your Word is truth.”

If God’s Word is truth, then why can’t Christians agree in our present culture war? Could it be that deception is more widespread in the church than ever before, causing the present divide? Recently Donn and I talked to a man who had been my pastor for years and who performed our marriage ceremony in the Mennonite church. As we discussed events taking place not only in that denomination but in many others, Donn said, “But how can Christians believe these things [regarding homosexuality] in light of what the Bible teaches?” My former pastor said with more than a hint of irony, “They say we have somehow misinterpreted Romans 1 all these years! They also say that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality but lack of hospitality.” I knew he was right, but still I wondered, How did it happen? How could people who once knew and stood for the truth be so totally deceived?

And yet we need only go to the book of Genesis for the answer. In Genesis 3:1 we find the first reference to the enemy of our souls twisting God’s Words. “Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” Of course that’s not what God said, but Satan was trying to portray God as a killjoy who wouldn’t allow them to eat from any of the trees in the garden. After Eve gave her own rendition of twisting God’s Word, the serpent went even further, twisting God’s Word to an even greater degree. Eve had the same choice each of us have when confronted with a twisted version of Scripture─she could either choose to believe God or choose to believe Satan. Why did she choose to believe Satan? Why do we choose to believe him?

In Eve’s case it’s clear she wanted to eat the apple because it looked good to her and she thought it would taste good and make her wise. Could the same be true today? To Christians who have same sex attractions, the person to whom they’re attracted looks good. Having sex with them sounds enjoyable. In addition, if someone has given them the twisted version of God’s Word, there is the added appeal of being wiser than those who have “misinterpreted” the Bible all these years. The people they’re listening to usually aren’t painting a clear picture of the emotional and physical liabilities of the lesbian/homosexual lifestyle.

It’s much easier to sin if we have convinced ourselves first that what we want to do isn’t wrong. In 2010 Donn told me one of our favorite Christian singers was now saying he’s gay. I immediately did a Google search to discover which stance he was taking: I know this is wrong, but I don’t care, or I no longer believe homosexuality is wrong. The answer was clear─he is now part of a church which embraces homosexuality. I wept and grieved over this man for days.

In her book Uninvited, Lisa Terkeurst says, “I had truth. But I had not applied the truth. Therefore, my mind did what my feelings wanted. The decision in that moment was made with a mind conformed to what seemed acceptable to the world. It was not a mind transformed by truth…[I thought] trading God’s truth for what the world said was a better plan…What started off as a seemingly small compromise can easily become a complete contradiction to the people we long to be…Only when we seek to apply Jesus’ revelations to our situations will we experience transformation.”

So it is not truth that protects us from deception, but truth applied to our situation. May God grant us wisdom to understand the difference. Next week we’ll talk about Adam and the reasons he, and many like him, are deceived.

Father, forgive us for becoming so well-adjusted to our culture that we fit into it without even thinking. Help us apply your teachings to our lives in a way that protects us from deception. Amen.

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:2 The Message