Heart Tracks - Illusions

"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie." Romans 1:25...."We exchange the truth for a lie because we had a falling out with the truth, and lies are the only options left." Chris Tiegreen ... "Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions." Oswald Chambers

One of the well known stories in the Old Testament is when the Israelites, growing impatient with Moses absence while on Mt. Sinai with God, decided that they could not trust this God who had led them out of Egypt. He was too much of a mystery to them, so they decided to "craft" Him in an image they could more easily identify with; a golden calf. They didn't see it as rejection, just a re-making of Him in a form more acceptable to themselves. Scripture says they exchanged the glory of God for a statue of a grass eating ox. They, as Paul writes, exchanged His Truth for a lie. Might there be someplace, many places, where we have done the same?

Chambers said that we suffer from illusions. This is true. We have illusions about Him, what He should do and be. We have illusions about ourselves, who we think we are as compared to who we really are. We have illusions about others, about the church, heaven and hell, suffering, sickness, and a multitude of other things. Our illusions yield so many "cruel things," cruel fruit, in our lives. We need, as a friend has put it, "the gift of disillusionment." To be disillusioned means that we no longer believe the illusion. We are now ready to receive Truth. Have you received that gift as concerns your disillusions? Are you ready (at last) to receive His Truth?

Sometimes the illusions we believe are because of ignorance, bad teaching, or dependence on our emotions and reason. Sometimes, but, I think, not most times. The Israelites did not like the way the Lord had been dealing with them through Moses. They had, as Tiegreen says, a falling out with the truth. Many have. Have you? Where have you believed that He's disappointed you? What portion of Scripture, of His revelation of Himself, has been so difficult for you to accept? In fact, where has His revelation of truth clashed with your version of it? Where have you constructed a golden calf? An image of Him that's more in keeping with how you see Him rather than who He really is? It's happening everywhere today; from our understanding of Scripture to our view of Jesus Christ Himself, who is literally the Word made flesh. Where have we exchanged His glory for an ox?

If you're living out an illusion, accepting a lie as truth, it doesn't matter so much how you got there, but it does matter as to what you'll do there. In his song, "Your Love Broke Through," Keith Green sang of how the reality of his God pierced his darkness, and all the lies he believed and illusions he lived in. He sang, "Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed, until Your love broke through. I've been caught in a fantasy, that blinded me, until Your love broke through." In every place where we've believed the lie, accepted the illusion, may His truth, love, and life break through. May we wake up from the dream, the illusion that seems so real, and live in the life of the One who is.... real.

Blessings,
Pastor O