REPOST Today’s AMI QT Devotional is a reprint of Kate Moon’s blog originally posted on August 25, 2015. Kate continues to serve the Lord in E. Asia.
Devotional Thought for This Morning
“What Self-Deception Looks Like”
2 Kings 11:14
She looked and there was the king, standing by the pillar, as the custom was. The officers and the trumpeters were beside the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her robes and called out, “Treason! Treason!”
When King Joash at age seven retakes his rightful place on his father’s throne, the people of the land were rejoicing, but Athaliah cried out, “Treason!”
That she is calling this situation “treason” is so ironic because it was she who had actually committed treason when she murdered all the possible heirs she could find and seized the throne for herself six years prior. And yet she had come to believe that she was the rightful ruler of the land and that all these others were currently in the wrong. She was deluded and deceived.
It is a sad story, but could it be that we are sometimes the same? Getting upset at what is happening to us and blaming others, not being able to see that we are the ones who are actually in the wrong?
The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and each of us is susceptible to self-deception. Do we have someone in our lives before whom we can humble ourselves and ask whether they see anything gone awry, either in our lives or the way we see the world?
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to see things as You do, properly and not distortedly. Help me not to be deceived about who I am and what I’ve done; I don’t want to be deluded. If there is any area in which I am in the wrong, help me to see it clearly and repent. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Revelation 17
Lunch Break Study
Read Jeremiah 17:9-11: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 ‘I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.’ 11 Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the answer to the problem of a deceitful heart? If we can’t trust our own hearts, who can we trust (v. 10)?
2. How does God reward a person’s actions (v. 10)?
3. What happens to the person who “gains riches by unjust means” (v. 11)? What warning or comfort does this truth bring to us?
Notes
1. Though our very own hearts can deceive us, God cannot be deceived. We can trust Him to judge rightly and should turn to Him.
2. God examines that person’s heart and mind—their true motives. God also rewards us fairly, according to what we deserve.
3. The riches will not stay with him (just as Athaliah who seized power by unjust means lost it in the end). We are to be careful to live right lives and can even take comfort in the face of injustice done to us, knowing that God will bring about justice in the end.
Evening Reflection
Was there a situation today in which I was tempted to blame others? Did I ask God to shine His light into that situation and check my heart to make sure there wasn’t any wrongdoing on my part that I needed to address instead?