“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” 1 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
Reflection: have you ever deceived yourself?
Perhaps the favorite weapon of the devil is “deception”. How would we describe it? It basically is a half truth, which is still a lie. But deception is the art of cloaking a lie in something that looks or sounds pretty good, or might even have some truth to it. It was exactly the method the devil used to fool Eve in the garden, convincing here that the eating of the fruit was good, regardless of what God had said. And deception is still the devil’s favorite weapon today. But the question today is,
Is it actually possible to deceive oneself?
Before you blow that off, thinking you are smarter or wiser than fooling yourself, let me give you a simple example to reflect on. We all hate pollution, and want clean air, right? So what do you think about CO2 emissions? As we all have witnessed for the past few years, there has been an all out war against CO2, an effort to make this gas into something very bad, that we need to get rid of. But, isn’t this the very gas that plants need to produce oxygen? What would happen to our atmosphere, to plant and animal life, even to us humans, if we start removing CO2? If you take the time to dig a bit deeper, you find that the stories you have heard are not exactly true. They are deceptions of a deeper agenda, rarely serving the good of mankind. Sometimes the exact opposite seems to be more true.
In fact, the “airwaves” are saturated with all sorts of deceptions by the enemy. It is all around us, in our schools, government, news, music and entertainment, even into our churches. And we can therefore easily “fool” or deceive ourselves going along with the wrong agenda. Something the story sounds pretty smart to our own wisdom, like science. Think of how many were fooled during the pandemic, that we now know was a massive deception at a grand scale. So many who ended up doing things against all morals and societal values, even illegal activities. Fooled like Eve was. After listening to the serpent, Eve convinced herself that it was good to eat of the fruit. A catastrophic mistake.
You and I are no better; that is, in our flesh.
So, how in the world can we fool ourselves? How can we not see the trick, the deception being played on us? How can so many fall for the deception of the enemy? I think we can explain it in one simple word:
Pride.
And pride comes in many forms, such as “intellect”, “vanity”, “love of self”, “self centeredness”, etc. Some even think they can outsmart others, outsmart even God. And by doing so, they end up fooling themselves. Paul wrote to the Corinthians “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”” 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 ESV. Notice the phrase “He [God] catches the wise in their craftiness”, meaning a person wise in their own eyes will be caught in his own craftiness, because God will not be mocked.
Let us not fool ourselves listening to the so called wise of the world. Paul’s guidance for us is to become fools in the eyes of the world, to gain spiritual wisdom and knowledge of who we are in Christ.