Simplicity and Godly Sincerity Part 2

Simplicity and Godly Sincerity. Part 2

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 2Corinthians 11:3

But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. 2Corinthians 4:2

For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you. 2Corinthians 1:12

Continued from Part 1.

To cultivate simplicity and godly sincerity devoid of worldly wisdom but resting only on the power of grace, we must first renounce every hidden thing of dishonesty. We must not entertain those thoughts that can't be justified in Christ Jesus or that can't be brought to the open in a godly conversation. 

I understand that the new way of dishonesty is to put lies and errors to people's faces as the truth, blatantly and boldly with satanic courage and confidence. But it's always with selfish cover up agendas and always to gain a psychological advantage to bully and stubbornly manipulate others to accepting errors as the truth. 

Lots of the times, ungodly and worldly ambitions, bothering on the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life are foundations of our lack of simplicity and godly sincerity. We want to have more money, we want to be seen as great people in the sight of the world irrespective of what Christ called greatness, we want to build empires and edifices of physical temples with our names attached like Nimrod, we want to be renowned, and we want to beat others to it. We want to make history that impresses men, breaks records and lays new ones, we want to lay up treasures on the earth and not be content with just food and raiment, but to be hailed by the world. 

We'll always need people to make these things happen and these people will either be won by certain false promises and pretences or be won by coercion and manipulations. In the process, the word of God is distorted to give a sense of divine approval to the error and people are led away into trouble and destruction. 

It is good that we develop a sense of confidence in our personal and individual relationships with God. Each believer must have that sense of right to independently explore God's word and His Spirit with minimal and only necessary help of third parties. The lie that we can only access God through third parties is the ground for manipulation. It is there that people's hearts are corrupted like that of Eve through deceit. 

Wherever God knows we need third parties, He is always ever faithful to give us pastors after His own heart, like Jesus Christ the great shepherd of the sheep Himself, who won't fleece us to satisfy their indulgences and selfish desires on our submissiveness and simplicity. 

To develop simplicity and godly sincerity, we need to learn to absolutely depend on God and on His grace. Without the active operation of grace, worldly wisdom will become an alternative and we'll slip into insincerity. 

There is nothing God wants us to become or to have that He hasn't made provision for in His plan for our lives. If we have the promise, then His plan has covered it from the foundation of the world. We need not cut corners or become corrupt to achieve the things God has ordained. God created the whole world without iniquity, there's nothing He has promised us that will require us committing sin against Him to achieve. We don't need to steal to have what God has promised. This underscores the difference between Isaac and his son, Jacob and their different natures of struggles to gain God's promises. 

For every plan of God, there's is power and every resource already available to bring it to pass. God's omnipotence exists to bring God's will and plans to pass. The purpose of the power of God is to bring to pass the plan of God. Once we can be sure that God has a plan for our lives, we should also rest in the assurance that He has all the power and the resources needed to bring it to pass. If it is His will, and we are willing too, His power is always available to bring it to pass in His time. We don't need to become insincere or to become complex and difficult to understand in our bid to make God's will happen. 

If the vision is His, He will make it happen. He had enough provisions to bring His vision to pass. The same way He had made us available for the vision with adequate passion and equipment, same way He has made other things needed available to bring the vision to pass. 

1Corinthians 2:9-11 tells us of the plan of God for our lives in things God has prepared for us, and Ephesians 3:20 tells us of the power at work in us to bring to pass things beyond what we can ask or imagine. Jesus is clear about the fact that God won't start a project He already doesn't have enough to complete. 

Our faith in this phenomenon triggers the release of grace to make things happen towards the fulfillment of the promises of God for our lives. We need not become anxious and fearful. When we walk by faith in this phenomenon, we will fear no man, we will fear no force, either in the spirit realm or in the physical. We'll fear no rejection of men or depletion of resources. No threat will be strong enough to scare us, we know we have the backing of God. We won't walk in envy, if we know these things, we know what God has planned is beyond what anyone can compete against or we compete to get. We will have restful confidence, as we wait on God doing His will. 

Let no selfish ambition, fear of failure or personal insecurity push you out of simplicity and godly sincerity into worldly wisdom and into acts of hypocrisy and dishonesty. There's simplicity in Christ and in it there's abundance of grace to power us all into all that God has in store for us. 

Jesus Christ is Lord!

Simplicity and Godly Sincerity Part 1

Simplicity and Godly Sincerity

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. 2Corinthians 1:12

It's amazing that apostle Paul would see it something to be boastful of and a testimony of Christlikeness and of the Christian behavioural system, a life of simplicity. It's more understandable to accept godly sincerity as a godly virtue than simplicity, simplicity sometimes presents as naivity and no one wants to be naive. But to Christ's Paul, both are of equal importance in the behavioural system of godliness.

Simplicity is that attitude without complexities, complications, unnecessary depth. It presents as innocence, lack of subtlety and an unpretentious way of dealing. An easily understandable kind of life. There is no guile in simplicity. It is transparent and clear that you can always see through it. 

While the King James and other related versions put it as simplicity, other translations use other words like holiness, purity, integrity, singleness (of mind), graciousness and generosity as translated from the Greek word, 'hagiotëti'. (Strong's 572)

The other virtue that Apostle Paul boasted of is godly sincerity. Sincerity speaks of truthfulness and conscientiousness. He called it godly sincerity probably because the possibility is there to be wrongly sincere. The translated word implies clearness. A dictionary explains it as the absence of pretence, deceit or hypocrisy. In sincerity, what you see is what you get. 

These two words and the thoughts around them show a little more often in his second letter to the Corinthians than in his other writings. 

2 Corinthians 2:17

You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ’s authority, knowing that God is watching us. NLT

2Corinthians 4:2

But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. ESV 

2Corinthians 11:3

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. NKJV 

In studying through Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, it is clear that Paul was uncomfortable with certain preachers of his days. He saw insincerity in their ways through the underhanded complexities of their dealings. He tried to let the people know how he and his colleagues had dealt with them in sincerity and in simplicity. 

According to Paul, Christianity is done in simplicity and in godly sincerity as God watches our hearts and intentions for doing things and in our devotion to Him. 

It is a sign of some evil when we become complex, complicated and compounded. When it becomes difficult to be understood because of lots of coverups, most likely there's already a drifting away from Christ. 

Christianity isn't a cult. When our dealings start to take the nature of cultism, it is because of the 2Corinthians 4:2 syndrome. There are already disgraceful and underhand things going on. And there will be dishonesty and tampering with God's word to gain access into the lives of the innocent. 

When we have things to hide, we resort to worldly and fleshly wisdom to cover up. We dare not depend on the grace of God and on His Spirit at that point. That's when you hear people talking about 'applying wisdom'. Of course, it's not the wisdom that comes from above. It is such cunning craftiness that helps to earn things God hasn't given or hasn't promised which the sinful nature craves. 

In our quest to satisfy the cravings of worldly definition of success in building great organisations, wealth and popularity, which God may not have promised, we can't but slip into insincerity and complexities. A film script writer said 'saints don't build great things', implying that to build great things in the eyes of people, you can't assume absolutely moral posture. The Yorùbá people say the foundation of wealth may be messy. 

As we try to protect and to advance our fleshly causes, we fall into the sin of Jeroboam, the first king of the Northern kingdom of Israel after the split, who led Israel to sin, the sin of personal insecurity. Who in his bid to maintain a throne he gained only through grace, he raised idols in Israel to keep the people from going to Jerusalem to worship God as ordained by God, in case their hearts were won over back to the house of David. He formed alternative altars to the one ordained of God and called the idols, the God who brought Israel out of the captivity of Egypt. 

Apostle Paul saw the same dishonesty in display in his days and if we look around today, we can see same things ongoing. The danger is what Apostle Paul pointed out in 2Corinthians 11:3, how the simple hearts of believers can be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus or away from their simple devotion to Christ.

To be continued... Watch out for the Concluding part.

Jesus Christ is Lord!

Photo: joshuaclifford123/pixabay

How not to be a Hypocrite Part 1

*How not to be a Hypocrite* 

 _Part 1_ 

Jesus Christ our Lord didn't hide His disdain for hypocrisy, He publicly called hypocrites out. The gospel according to Matthew recalled 14 times when He mentioned the word 'hypocrites'. 7 of those times are in chapter 23 addressed to the scribes and the pharisees and all the seven were accompanied with the word 'woe'.

In the 6th chapter, He warned His disciples not to be like the hypocrites in giving, in praying and in fasting. Nobody, except God needs to know how much of a giver you are, how prayerful you can be or how much you fast and how painful your fasting is. These are meant to be secretive to people for God to see and to accept them. They aren't for show. 

In chapter 15:6-7, He queried how they, being hypocrites, would twist the commands of God to suit their personal indulgences and their religious advantages. He confirmed what Isaiah said about them as true, saying they only drew near to God with their mouths but their hearts were far away from Him. They really didn't intend obeying God from the get go. 

In chapter 16, He called them out for claiming to know what the weather will be like by watching the skies but won't use same mental acumen to judge the times and the seasons of God by looking at how society was changing.

In chapter 22, they came to Jesus pretending to want to know the truth about paying taxes and tributes to Ceasar, under whose domination Israel was at the time. They spent Caesar's money and knew the implications of that in taxes to him, but wanted to catch Jesus by His words, probably He, being a 'King' would make a rebellious statement against Caesar and be arrested.

Then come the 7 woes in chapter 23. 

He pointed out how the religious leaders shut the gates to God's kingdom, assuming a false position of gatekeepers, they won't enter and they won't let others who desired to enter.

He pointed out how these religious leaders would use all manners of religious and pious acts just to devour widows' houses, extorting from those who have none through pretences of religiosity and false and manipulative spiritual mysteries. 

How they'll travel the world to make a convert, only to make such twice a child of hell fire. Hypocrisy makes religion become an avenue to hell fire.

He spoke of how they would pay the tithes of the tiniest of things in religious obligations, but those weightier matters of godliness, in showing love, justice and mercy, were left untouched since they don't suit nor add to their popularity and fleshly indulgences. 

He pointed out how they will wash the outside of the cup, looking pious and sanctimonious on the outside but their inside are full of dregs. They whitewash the outside of the graves, leaving the inside with dead people's bones.

They would repair the graves of martyrs, same people they would have killed had they the opportunity, a reason why God will demand their blood even from them.

And lastly, He indicated in chapter 24:51, how hypocrites won't make it to heaven but have their places in hell.

It is clear that hypocrisy is a slippery place for the religious person and those who claim to know God. It is so easy for those who preach righteousness to slip into hypocrisy, becoming pretentious, and living double lives. The more reason we all must walk most carefully and to know for sure what we are doing and the demands of the reputations we claim...

It is the same reason the world system stereotypes us all as being hypocrites. Of course, many believe it is impossible to live godly in this world. To many, holiness is an impossibility and so when you present a holy outlook, they quickly tag you a liar without any proof.

No one enjoys being called a Hypocrite. People would rather want to have a good reputation before the public and be seen as good people deserving of recognitions, honours and appointments. The problem is that they aren't usually so passionate about maintaining same desire when not before the camera on the podiums of the world. People love the public applause while they do differently in secret when there's no one to hail and to clap for them...

So how do we navigate through this slippery place and not be caught in the web of hypocrisy and fall into the damnation of the hypocrites? We'll try to answer the question in the concluding part 2. Watch this space. 

Jesus Christ is Lord! 

To be continued...