The Deception

by Joe Mucciolo, Sr.

 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12)

The deception is real. There is a cloud of darkness over most people's eyes that extends deep into their brains. Not that they are unintelligent - but what do most people use their intelligence for? Nothing, usually (I speak not only from my observations of others, but from personal experience as well). While there are horrors and tragedies aplenty, we humans wander around in this fog of endless entertainment, empty amusement, but isn't it really just a way to numb the pain and hide from reality?  We get so entrenched in this way of life that we are like addicts, we are addicts, and we'll do anything to defend the things we're doing, even though we know they're wrong. We sink deeper into our relativism all the while leaving a trail of broken relationships, heartbreak, and out right tragedy. We are victim and victimizer all rolled into one, and we perpetuate our dismal situations into the future via our offspring. How noble we become! We would spare future generations the toil of living in such a wretched place by committing the most abominable of crimes - murder of the most innocent (guiltless) among us, all in the name of "good".

Oh wretched men that we are! Who will deliver us from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) The answer stares us right in our faces, though we try hard to bury our heads deep into the sand.  But being people in love with our own wickedness we reject it (Him) wholeheartedly. Sometimes we try in vain to do things to make up for it, but mostly we spend our time ignoring our condition or thinking up grand philosophical excuses for what we do. We deceive ourselves, and the deception is real.

Wake up to reality!  God has given us all the ability to know right from wrong, and to choose to act on it. When we do wrong, we've chosen to do wrong, and so we are guilty, and we will be held accountable for our actions, it's as simple as the law of gravity - try to break it, and you're headed down! The deception is in all of us, but we can do something about it. The deception is in you - but you can do something about it! Not by trying to "out-do" your bad deeds with good ones - you'll never catch up that way. You need help, and you need it bad. You need someone powerful enough to catch you up out of your rut, to pull you up from the bottom of your drowning sea and pump the disgusting stink of your world out of you, someone who can fill you to overflowing with a goodness that satisfies and a hope that revitalizes you forever. You need Jesus, plain and simple. You need him.