There are many who are going to be deceived in this final time.

Might I confess, that down through the years, I wondered if I might be one of them.

Even as a young boy growing up in the church, something in me shuddered when I heard people talk about this.  I always asked myself, how could that be possible?

As I grew, I understood that it could mean those who were in the world as we called it, but surely not anyone in the Church….  Certainly not any of our people.

I had this subconsciousness fear, that this could happen to us.

Dottie wrote, “If I carry the gospel to the lost near and far, to a world that’s going astray. Don’t let me faint, in sight of the gate.”

The great and Holy Spirited apostle wrote, “…..Lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself, should be a castaway.”   1 Corinthians 9:27.

You know, this happened to some of us; in fact, it happened to more of us than we like to think about.

Years of serving the LORD, even preaching His Word, and yet we lost out and became drifters.  Shamed by our peers and suffering loss of reputation by those who once held us in high regard.

Lest there be those who point fingers and say “aha,” there were those who also failed miserably and it never got out.

Or it was somehow discreetly swept under the rug by those who know how to do such things.

Many spiritual failures, were never known; dark trails of wandering and being lost, while yet present.

I must stop and say, what a merciful God we have.  What a precious friend our Jesus, who went looking for us when it seemed most did not even try.

What a forgiving God.  The old song says, ‘thank God He found me, just in time.’

I still have a healthy fear of being somehow misled today.  I also have a healthy fear of the LORD; I absolutely cling to that.

I also learned, after many trail years, that as long as I purpose in my heart to follow the leading of the Holy Ghost,

I don’t have to worry about being deceived by the enemy, or anyone else.  Although I may not always see things at first, I have a built in radar and navigator that assures me.

I can correct my course and see and know what the Spirit detects in it all now.  I fear for those who operate their own way and their own rule.

We’ve all watched deception.  Too much of what we might have seen on television, led people astray.

It also caused many who were seeking truth and desperate for help, to withdraw and not get the deliverance and help they needed.

I cringe to be the one to say it, but much of what is now being presented as modern day church, is often deceptive in the worst kind of way.

We once liked to throw that verse at others that says, be not deceived, God is not mocked.  Rest assured, we likely never thought that one day, it might also apply to us.

Perhaps one of the greatest deceptions of all, is to think that anyone could claim to have the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and not manifest the fruit of the Spirit.

Most would never think, that envy might cause us to be deceived; that we could lose out on rewards and blessings that would come from our own gifts and talents.

Because we allowed ourselves to become sick, because someone else might have one better.  Worse, is to think that a true act of repentance, could have changed it.

I haven’t made it yet, and likely have any of you.  What’s wrong with some of us, that we might even yet be harsh and not see that our hearts have become stone.

LORD help us, this is no time for a holier than thou spirit or a puffed-up attitude that I am on a much higher level than most others.

Let us hold to our hearts, that the apostle also said, no matter how gifted I am or how much revelation I have, without loving others, it is all in vain.

It’s nothing.  I want to make it Home.  It seems so much closer now. God, don’t let me fail, after all this time.

 

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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