Deception
We have all been deceived at different times.
Deception is one of the worst things that can happen to us because we have made the choice to bring it upon ourselves. It is always harder to forgive ourselves than to forgive others.
We never like to admit that we have made a mistake and often we feel that the one deceiving us is right as they seem to give us valid reasons for being so.
This is because we are looking at it from the inside of the deception.
We often find that the person deceived the most tries to convince others, or even bully them, to believe the same rather than admit that they could be wrong. By forcing others they are justifying themselves.
Some of the biggest forms of deception are in Politics and Religion, so many choices but which one is right.
We tend to make the choice by finding the one that makes us the most comfortable rather than the one that is based on the truth. Sometimes being neutral rather than being positive or negative can be the right decision but often it is the wrong one as when you sit on the fence it is easy to fall off.
When we look at the deceptions of Politics and Religion we see that we tend to have a bias through what we have been told and seen as we have been growing up. We either accept the viewpoints that we have been told: or go to the other extreme and totally reject them and start to believe the opposite.
In Politics promises are made to win over the people and make them happy, these promises really come to fruition.
The first deception that happened was with Eve in the Garden of Eden where the serpent took God’s truth and twisted it to give Eve a half truth. Deception is used for the benefit of the deceiver to gain control for their own purposes. Satan introduced Eve to sin as retaliation for God removing him from heaven. Through Adam and Eve man lost the abundant life with God and has had a broken relationship since then.
Religion is based on half-truths, God’s ways are twisted to benefit the leaders and the followers accept it because it seems right. Religions always have strong leaders to keep a control over the followers. Having a form of Godliness but lacking the power thereof.
Bullying
This subject might seem out of place here but it is not.
The definition of bullying is;
When somebody wants somebody else to believe what they believe and that they are prepared to attack the other person’s integrity to do so.
We tend to think of bullying as being physical but it is psychological. The physical is used to enforce the psychological.
The schoolyard bully threatens violence because he/she believes that what the target has should be theirs and wants the target to believe that also, their integrity is then threatened by violence.
The bully normally acts this way because of insecurity problems.
In the same way our sub-conscious can also bully us into believing something as part of a defence mechanism, “if we do not submit we might get harmed”.
This is bringing fear into our lives and once we submit to fear it only gets worse as it changes our mind-set to a negative one. The worst fear that we can have is fear of the unknown as this can become crippling. Fear brings on worry, worry brings on stress, and stress can destroy our body from the inside. It is a reported fact that 80% of sickness is caused by stress.
The best way to stop bullying is to face it with fact and help the bully overcome their insecurities. The same with the sub-conscious we need to find the true reason for the fear and cut it out at the root.
Bullying is often used in religion by introducing fear if the followers do not do as they are told, often based on punishment from God.
I have always believed and followed two verses of scripture that talk about revenge.
Rom_12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
And
Rom_12:14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
Recently I thought about these verses and the fact that God is a God of Love, in fact God is love, and therefore what is His form of vengeance?
We, as mere men, tend to expect God to send down fire and brimstone to torment them.
But the Conclusion that I came to was that to wrong doers God will send His Holy Spirit to convict them of sin, righteousness and judgement, for they are no worse than we were before we were forgiven by God and born again. They then have the choice of repentance and eternal life or carrying on as they are and suffering eternal damnation. God does not condemn them they condemn themselves.