Tag: Heart

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Playing with a Tiger

How Does Sin Deceive?

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:13 (ESV)

Siegfried and Roy made careers out of performing with their white tigers for the entertainment of Las Vegas tourists. And they were unique in that these were dangerous wild animals, and the audience wasn’t separated from these big cats. They performed thousands of times with 1500 people in the audience without incident until a show in 2003 when Roy was mauled and carried off stage by one of the tigers. He never performed again. You can treat tigers like pets, and they certainly did have amazing success with them for decades, but they were still wild animals. Watching the show an audience member could probably have believed that they were just big, impressive house pets. But they were not.

Sin is like that wild tiger.

This image was generated by AI.

I was counseling a man once, and I spent some time in Hebrews 3:13 talking about how our sin deceives us. We need other believers to help us see what we cannot see. He asked why I thought to talk on this, and I told him it’s because his sin deceives him (and my sin deceives me). It’s a regular occurrence for us, and realizing it helps unmask it.

What makes sin’s deception worse is you also conspire with your sin. Your sin is not some outside enemy trying to breach the walls of your heart. It’s in your heart, and you like to live in darkness. We are natural-born hiders. We love having a reputation that we don’t deserve. We love pretending we’re something we are not. So your sin deceives you, but it often has a willing accomplice in you.

So how does our sin deceive us? The author of Hebrews claims it does and that we need other Christians to help us see it. In fact, we need their intervention on a daily basis. But what does that deception look like? Hebrews 3:13 doesn’t get specific, but I believe there are several ways that sin deceives us.

Your Sin Deceives You About Its Existence

You sin in ways that you don’t even know. There are things that are sin in your life, but you don’t know they are there yet. We’ve probably all had this experience when reading God’s Word or hearing a sermon in church—our eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit to a sin that we never saw before. It reminds me of Psalm 19.

Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Psalm 19:12 (ESV)

We have hidden faults that are hidden from us. Sin is happy to hide in plain sight in our lives. It’s happy to hide in the dark in our lives. Sin just loves to hide and make us believe that it’s not there at all.

Your Sin Deceives You About Its Extent

Sin lies to you. Even when you see your sin, your sin is working to deceive you. It’s only admitting what you see. It’s saying, “Nothing else to see here. Keep walking.” So you see your problem with authority at work, but you don’t see it in how you ignore city ordinances about your yard. You are aware of your selfishness in serving around the home, but you don’t see it in your lack of financial generosity. You see how your fear of man has kept you from sharing the gospel, but you don’t see how it has kept you from ministry in the church. You see how your anxiety has made you sick, but you don’t see how it has led you to doubt God’s goodness.

The sin that you do see is far more pervasive and extensive than you know. Your sin has roots throughout your heart. Sin deceives you.

Your Sin Deceives You About Its Seriousness

We downplay our sin. I don’t believe that my sin is that serious. Yours probably is, but I’ve got mine under control.

Sin is always serious. Jesus had to die for it. God’s wrath was justly applied to Jesus for your sin. That means that your light besetting sin is not something that doesn’t matter. It does. And it’s our familiarity with certain sins that probably leads us to downplay how severe they are. If there is an eternal penalty for it, it’s not a mild thing. Sin hides in plain sight by pretending to be docile and meek when it’s actually deadly.

Your sin wants you to think it’s no big deal. Let it live a while longer. Play with it. No! John Owen was right when he said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” You need to kill it. It is serious.

Your Sin Deceives You About Its Effects or Consequences

This is an especially popular lie of sin in an age when we believe that our sin only affects us. If it’s a private sin, then what harm is it actually doing? The young person soaking up pornography night after night doesn’t see how it distorts his view of people. He no longer loves his neighbor, he only lusts after his neighbor. The husband who silently stews over offenses rather than yelling doesn’t think that the silent treatment harms his family relationships, but it does. His wife and children live fearful and wondering why dad is so mad. Many marriages have seen a creeping distance develop because one or both spouses didn’t think this or that sin was that important. They weren’t relentless in killing sin.

And where sin most lies to us about its effects is in our relationship with God. Our sin pushes us away from intimacy with the One who created us.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Psalm 66:18 (ESV)

Our sin lets us pretend that everything is fine with God when it is absolutely not fine. This is why some that quit attending church during Covid have said “I’m doing better spiritually now than I was when I was attending church.” That’s not possible (Heb 10:25), but sin is a deceiver. It makes you believe that your sin has had no effect on your closeness with God.

Your Sin Deceives You About Its Danger

This is where sin is most like playing with a wild animal. It’s as if we’re all playing with full grown tigers. Just because the tiger hasn’t turned on us yet doesn’t meant it’s not dangerous. It doesn’t mean it’s not deadly.

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. Prov 5:22 (ESV)

I’ve always imagined sewing thread being wrapped around us one strand at a time as a picture of Prov 5:22. Sure three, four, maybe even eight strands I can break. But even sewing thread wrapped around you enough times will bind you. That’s the danger of sin. It lets you believe that you’re in control while it slowly strangles you. When you finally realize it, it could be too late.

Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount said,  

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5:29–30 (ESV)

Your sin is so dangerous according to Jesus, that it requires radical steps to deal with it.

Your sin lies to you. And here’s a prime example of its deception. It’s when you read this entire blog, and you think of others that need to hear this. Not you. You don’t need this, but that other Christian you’re thinking of does.

Is there some sin that you’ve been playing with? Have you been deceived?

God wants you to be holy (1 Peter 1:14-16). Sin is serious. It’s not a trifling matter. Put your sin to death. Kill it or it will kill you.

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You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Post Is About You

I’m writing you because I’ve always liked you and appreciated your heart for ministry.[1]The blog title is with apologies to Carly Simon. However, I’ve noticed over the years a failing that is more harmful than you might initially realize. It has several symptoms, but one is that you take credit for the little success that God has allowed you to be part of. It’s like Laura Story says in her song, “Grace,”

My heart is so proud
My mind is so unfocused
I see the things You do through me
As great things I have done

It seems to me that you think ministry success is intrinsic to you and not to God’s grace through you. Yes, some have been influenced and blessed by your ministry. Some have enjoyed your preaching and been changed by it. I’ve talked to people that are very appreciative, but you’ve imagined that said something about you and your talents rather than God and his grace. (And I should know since I’m writing this post to myself.)

God says he hates pride (Jam 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5), but you don’t seem to hate it that much. You realize that, right? You express envy of others’ ministry—you know this is true! Rather than rejoicing that God’s Kingdom is advancing through other unworthy servants you wish it was advancing through you. You want to be the nexus of God’s work. Scripture says there is one Mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), and you want it to be you. That attitude dethrones Christ. You need to be dethroned, not Christ.

Actually, envy is very likely one of the chief characteristics of your heart. You look at other Christian families and wish your family was in the same stages of life as they are with the same seeming success. Do you see how unseemly that is? Paul tells us to…

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 (ESV)

You do weep with those that suffer; however, even that is tainted by your own tendency to think that maybe, maybe God has given them suffering and not you as evidence of his chastisement of them and his joy in you. Do you see how sneaky your pride is?  

But the first half of the verse you rarely obey. You hear of the blessings that others receive, and inside you sound like the child you once heard who screamed, “BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?” You want the blessings of certain milestones with your children, and you’re not satisfied with God’s timing. You long for the acknowledgement that others receive, and you’re not content with how God has used you so far.

Please listen carefully; don’t be defensive. You act a bit like Diotrephes in 3 John.

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 3 John 9 (ESV)

One of your college professors memorably said of Diotrephes, “The loving of prominence and the longing for preeminence is in all of us.” [2]Doug McLachlan I don’t know if it’s in all of us, but it certainly is in you. You want to be recognized and acknowledged. It’s not a little failing; it’s actually a grotesque distortion of the servant attitude that Christ displays throughout the Gospels and the Apostle Paul so richly described in Phil 2. Do you count others as more significant than yourself (Phil 2:3)? Do you look out for the interests of others or just your own (Phil 2:4)? Not often you don’t.

Listen, I like you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ve known your ministry from the beginning, and you’ve always talked about transparency and vulnerability; your response to this can show how transparent you really are. So far, you’ve talked about it without being very transparent or vulnerable yourself. Wouldn’t it be good for you to admit that pride is more entwined with your service than you have realized? Could that be the first step towards more humble ministry; even a more God-blessed ministry?

Even you writing this post is probably an example of pride in your heart costumed as faux humility. You do realize that, don’t you, don’t you?

Consequently, I hope you read these words more than once and recognize that God could use them to set your life on a trajectory of more pleasing service to Him. It might not be more successful by the temporal measures of ministry success, but it could be more God-glorifying and Christ-exalting. And isn’t that why you claim to serve anyway?

References

References
↑1 The blog title is with apologies to Carly Simon.
↑2 Doug McLachlan
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Husband, Unlock Your Phone!

When we lived in North Carolina, our neighborhood had a pool, and my wife and kids were there all the time. Sometimes my family would have lunch at the pool and I would meet them there. I would drive there, eat, change clothes, jump in the pool with the kids, change back, and drive to work. We had four kids which wasn’t so many that I couldn’t count them. 😉 I’d look for my almost three-year-old Riley and not see him in or around the pool. Turns out he was hiding in the shadows under the cabana. If I caught him under there, he would say something fearfully like, “Are you going back to work soon, Dad?” because he was nervous that I would take him to the “deep water” and make him jump off the side. And that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

He thought hiding in the shadows was the place to be. I thought bringing him out into the sunshine was a better idea. Better for him to come out into the light and deal with his fear of the water.

It seems better to hide in the shadows, but God encourages us to come out into the light.

It happened again recently, but it’s a story that is repeated over and over again throughout the last 20 years of ministry. A wife knows that something is wrong in her marriage, but she cannot figure out what is going on. Or maybe she actually suspects that her husband is unfaithful.

What’s a common warning sign that I’ve seen pretty much since the advent of the cellular phone? “Well, he wouldn’t let me look at his phone. He was really secretive about it.”

A husband that won’t let you look at his phone is a big deal. I cannot think of a good reason for why a husband would keep his phone private from his wife. He’s hiding something.

Husband, unlock your phone!

I’m saying unlock it, but I really mean give your wife your password. My iPhone has two faces that can open it: mine and my wife’s. She and my adult kids know the numeric password. Why do you need your phone locked from your family? Live in the light.

Of course unlocking your phone means nothing if you aren’t going to give up your sin. The problem isn’t the advent of passwords on phones, The problem is that too many men are hiding who they really are.

Proverbs 28:13 (ESV) Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Don’t pretend to be what you are not. The locked phone is just a symptom of a heart that likes to hide in the dark. What this verse is saying is that when I have an attitude that says I must cover myself; I must hide my sin, I won’t prosper. I won’t be growing at the rate that God wants me to.

Take some steps out into the open. Have a lifestyle of transparency. Your marriage needs this. You need this. Husband, unlock your phone.

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3 Cautions with Personality Tests

A while ago I was playing a game called 9 Books with our family and a family friend. It’s one of those parlor games where you need to know the trick to get it, and once you get it, you can never play it again. In this game we put books in a 3×3 pattern on a table and one person left. The rest of us picked a book and then the absent person was called back. Our family friend pointed to book after book and when she pointed to the one we picked as a group, he called it out. The trick was to figure out how he knows, and I must not be good at it because I was probably the last person to figure it out. In my case I had a lot of guesses, but when I finally guessed correctly, it was an aha moment.

Tim LaHaye’s Spirit Controlled Temperament was like that for my family (and many other evangelicals) when I was growing up. I was taught the four temperaments—choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic—and we took the test to figure out which one we were. It seemed to explain each of us. (For the record I was a choleric-sanguine mix.)

Those two incidents are analogous to me for how people tend to feel when they get the results back from a personality test. It seems insightful; there is an aha moment. When I find out I’m Cool Blue (Insights Discovery), it seems to give me information that I didn’t have before.

And personality tests are big business. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most commercially successful personality test; it’s used more than two million times a year. But there are others–close to 2000 personality tests on the market today.[1]Louis Menand, “What Personality Tests Really Deliver,” September 3, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver However, it’s questionable to me if they really are helpful for sanctification. Like parlor games I think they can be fun and interesting, but I question whether they actually lead to greater growth. Apparently some outside the church wonder similar things, even calling them the astrology of the office.[2]Emma Goldberg, The New York Times, “Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office,” September 17, 2019, … Continue reading One author said, “Personality testing is an industry the way astrology or dream analysis is an industry: slippery, often underground, hard to monitor or measure.”[3]Annie Murphy Paul, National Public Radio, “Personality Tests Are Popular, But Do They Capture The Real You?,” June 25, 2016, … Continue reading I’m sure some are more scientific and others less so (I’m looking at all you otters in the 4 Animals Personality Test), but I wonder if any are truly helpful for the biblical counselor. They’re interesting. They’re probably fun. But are they actually insightful? Can they really help me change?

Some people invest them with almost biblical importance. Here are three cautions I have about personality tests.

Caution: We Might Confuse Personality with Spirituality

So you’ve taken a personality test and the results say you are a patient person. That’s great! God gives some people a greater measure of patience in his common grace to us. But don’t confuse the results of a personality test with the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:23-23). Those are virtues that are the result of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives. They are by definition, unnatural. So be careful not to take the results of a secular personality test as evidence of spiritual growth. They’re not the same. God’s work in us is something that can only be explained by the Spirit, not by personality.

Caution: We Might Believe that Personality Is Fixed

Even though some have found evidence that variables in taking the test can affect your results (i.e., you can get different results with some tests depending on when you take it), overall we are tempted to think like the world that our personalities are fixed. So we get our results back and believe we cannot change. But where your personality is not Christlike, it has to change. It can change. The Great Commission and the 2nd Great Command aren’t just for extroverts. Us introverts have to share the gospel and love our neighbor. A personality test result is not an excuse for avoiding your neighbor too. Even introverts can be progressively sanctified resulting in loving others better. Personality tests are based on the assumption that personality cannot change. That’s not a biblical assumption.  

Caution: We Might Believe they Are Explanatory Rather than Descriptive

This is my primary concern. I can regard them as tools of self-discovery that explain me. I think they tell me why I do something rather than what I do, and the personality test makers promote them this way. They sell them as describing why we think and behave like we do. There are two potential ways I can misuse this assumption.  

  • Accusingly: “You do that because you’re an otter!”
  • Excusingly: “I cannot really help it. It’s what Cool Blues do.”

But Scripture doesn’t let us accept such poor explanations for our behavior and thinking. Instead it teaches us that all sin comes from the heart (Mt 7:15-20; 12:33-35; 15:10-20; Mk 7:14-23; Lk 6:43-45). It’s the bad fruit of a bad tree. It’s good news then that Jesus changes hearts. A personality test might describe the characteristic ways that I handle conflict or whether I prefer people or tasks, but it can never explain why I do what I do. The Bible is rich with motivation theory. Why let the insights of unbelievers explain you?

Like parlor games, personality tests are probably mostly harmless—with the above cautions in mind. Just don’t expect your personality test to say something about you that is more important than what Scripture already says about you. Be careful making life decisions off of a personality test. Don’t live based off the “insight” you received.

Are there any cautions you might add? Any pushback you might give?

References

References
↑1 Louis Menand, “What Personality Tests Really Deliver,” September 3, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver
↑2 Emma Goldberg, The New York Times, “Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office,” September 17, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/style/personality-tests-office.html?.?mc=aud_dev&ad-keywords=auddevgate&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt-6LBhDlARIsAIPRQcKIMy3FHWkex5pioSrHoedPIYPm4wDTUeOyl8Pw-shMfjvQBhuM1GkaAl_QEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
↑3 Annie Murphy Paul, National Public Radio, “Personality Tests Are Popular, But Do They Capture The Real You?,” June 25, 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/25/483108905/personality-tests-are-popular-but-do-they-capture-the-real-you
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The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

We’ve been watching a lot of Law and Order recently. We ordered YouTube TV a year ago so I could watch college football, and it allows unlimited storage of any show you want. So it took me about 3 seconds to set it to record all Law and Order episodes and within a few months I had all 496(!) episodes available. My wife and I have been working our way through them, and I don’t want to tell you what season we’re on for fear you’ll realize I’ve watched way too much Law and Order. 😉 It has been the last thing I remember before sleep a little too often. Sometimes we wake up the next morning asking each other if the criminal got convicted or sometimes even who the criminal is (must have fallen asleep really early in the show).

One thing I’ve learned (if my TV legal education can be trusted… and I think it can) is when an illegal search or an illegal interview of a defendant results in some damning evidence, it will often get tossed. It cannot be used. It’s called the fruit of the poisonous tree. If the search is illegal (the poisonous tree), then the result of that search is illegal too (the fruit).

It reminds me of something Jesus said.

Luke 6:43–45 (ESV) “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Jesus actually spoke about the real fruit of the poisonous tree! If my life produces bad fruit, it’s because the tree is bad. Clearly in this passage the tree is a metaphor for our hearts. Evil hearts produce evil. The fruit is bad because the heart is sinful.

Own Your Sin

I don’t like owning my sin, but this passage tells me I must. I want to believe that someone else is responsible for the poisonous fruit on my tree, but Jesus doesn’t allow that conclusion. Change doesn’t happen if I won’t own my sin. If you’re still pointing the finger at others or at your circumstances believing they are responsible for your sin, you won’t grow. No one else put that fruit on your tree.

Address Your Heart

All change goes through the heart if it’s biblical change. I don’t need to get better at biting my tongue; I need to get better at repenting. Jesus is not interested in my attempts to put good fruit on a bad tree. He wants the tree changed. And… thankfully, he gives heart-changing grace.

Is your counsel addressing the heart? Or are you just stapling new fruit on an evil tree?

Are you addressing your own heart? Or are you content with superficial change?