Ponderings on church last night...

Joe and I went to church last night and heard a great message on Acts 5. For the next several weeks, our pastor will be speaking on "Fundamentals to Go Deep," and this week he talked about deception. He had some very cool points that stuck out for me.

1. If we cover ourselves, God will expose us. If we expose ourselves, God will cover us.

*I so appreciated this point, because I've often thought that I respect and trust people more when they are transparent and reveal their weaknesses, faults, and mistakes - when they are up front and say "I messed up. I'm sorry." It's when people try to cover things up to try to protect their reputation, or control what people think of them, that is something I don't respect. For myself, I hope to be that transparent. I think I would rather tell on myself, and have God and others forgive me, than have God expose me!! Yikes. Our pastor said to "get your junk in the light," sighting Hebrews 4:12, 13. He also said that we are pre-disposed to hide (like when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and realized they were naked), so we must go against that nature, and expose our "junk." It's when we bring things into the light, that we are free.......Love that....

2. Duplicity keeps confidence captive and robs authentic living.

*There was something that really stuck out for me in this point, too. He talked about how we can become a social chameleon in order to be accepted by other people, so we end up not being the authentic "me" God created us to be. Such as, in our interactions with people, we basically decide what other people want us to be, and we become that so they will accept us. Pretty soon, our "real me" is so waterered down, we don't even know who we are anymore. This duplicity is really deception. It is the watering-down of who God made us.....like watering down concentrated orange juice. Doing that makes it taste nasty......The truth is, that God created us, and LIKES us exactly the way He made us.