No Deceit

" Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"  John 1:47

Oh, that God might say that of me!  The Old King James uses the words "no guile".  According to Dictionary.com, guile is "insidious cunning in attaining a goal; crafty or artful deception; duplicity."   As the poem goes, "What a tangled web we weave when we practice to decieve."  The opposite of deception is honesty and integrity.  Solomon writes in Proverbs 11:3, "The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them."

As Christians we have no business being about craftiness, or duplicity.  Our "yes" should be "yes" and our "no" should be "no". (Matthew 5:37)  Bible.com says this about this verse: "He [Jesus] wants us to tell the truth directly and succinctly, avoiding lying or half-truths when letting our yes be yes would suffice."  We are to live life openly and honestly.  First we must be honest towards God.  Then He will reveal our hearts and our intents and our motives to us.  Then we must be honest with ourselves realizing our tendency towards deceit and sin.  Confession and prayer for conviction will help us humble ourselves so that God can deal with any tendency we have towards deceit.  Then we can be honest with others.  When we are right with God, comfortable within ourselves and at peace, then we will find no reason to decieve others.   

Deception often comes from the need to make ourselves better than we are or to prove ourselves to someone else.  When we realize our position before God, first as a sinner then as a child of the King, then we have no need to prove to someone else our worth.  We have no reason to decieve, we are at peace with God.  Humility precedes integrity. When we are right with God then we will be right with the world.

Does God  say this of You?  Are you without deceit?  Are you quick to repent?  Do you recognize your postion as a child of the King?  Then what do you need to deceive others for?  You have all you need at your fingertips through Jesus.  Walk with integrity and be at peace.

Hint of the Day:  Honesty was a big issue when we were raising our children.  We gave spankings for only two things.  Every other offenses we handled through time out or grounding or other means.  But two offenses were worthy of a spanking - lying and out and out rebellion.  Stomp your foot at me and tell me "no" and you would get a spanking.  Tell a lie and you would get a spanking.  End of discussion.  We would not raise liars.  We did not tolerate lies, half-lies, or deception of any kind.  At our house a half-truth was a whole lie.  Here's the hard part.  Sometimes it was Mom (me) that had to come and confess a half-truth.  If someone confessed before they got "caught" then there would be forgiveness instead of spankings.  The parents have to hold themselves up to the same standards that they hold their children to.  It is humbling for everyone involved, but there we learned forgiveness and grace as well as truth-telling.