Are Christians Deceitful In Their Actions?

Our Deceitful Hearts

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it”? (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV). Also, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23 NIV).

Please just bear with me momentarily, the Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) and biblically all humanity is guilty before God and we all need the Saving Grace of the Saviour (Romans 3:23; 3:10). So why do we need God’s Grace? Our hearts are deceitful and it leads us astray. How? Well, that deceitfulness in our hearts has a mixture of fear, doubt, confusion, selfishness, hatred and lusts for the things of others to mention but a few (Matthew 15:19).

Are we not struggling daily against the unwanted advances of our hearts and minds? What we mean is that our actions always warrants accountability whether we wronged others which will invoke God’s authority to treat others as we would like to be treated (Luke 6:31).

Resisting God’s Authority

The Lord will always test us to show us exactly the content of our hearts. A few years ago, the Lord without any prior announcement decided not to visit us as regularly as He did. Previously, the Lord would say when He was coming to deliver a message to us. Lately, He speaks to us often and unannounced or without saying when He was coming again to deliver a message to us. Why did He do that? Well, the week before He gave us a message to write as an article He said I should write about ‘How to know that God is testing you’. With that the Lord opened up what the scripture means in (Matthew 25:14-30). It was to test all of us and to show us that we only stand firm in Him because of His amazing Grace (Romans 14:4) and that He is no respecter of persons. Predictably, after we shared how the Lord was now communicating with us to some ministry members and some close brethren, their attitudes changed towards us and their commitment towards the Lord. As it is, we experienced a mass exodus from our ministry with many brethren going back to their sinful ways with others losing their respect and love for us.

O’ merciful Lord save us all! What a time of testing and ostracization we had to endure. Honestly we felt alienated, fearful and rejected by those we fed with the Word of God and in return we were repaid with disrespect (Psalm 41:9). As it is, this has really given us an understanding exactly how the Lord felt when He was deserted (John 16:32) and also how Job felt even his friends misunderstood him and blames him for the condition he was in (Job 4:3-5). But High Praise and Glory be to the Lord for steadfast friends who endured till this hour with us in prayer, support and love.

Is Our Deceitfulness Leading Us To Betray And Abandon Our Brethren?

It was like as if they were freed from the ‘burden’ of serving the Lord as faithfully as they had been when He gave them messages. As a result, this ‘freedom’ from the Lord’s authority even led some brethren to say to us, ‘we are no longer afraid of you’. How foolish! The Lord revealed to us that He was just testing us all and that He wanted to show us what is in our hearts (Deuteronomy 8:2).

Using the Bible as authority, we read how many people rebelled against God even after they saw His miracles (Numbers 14:11), this was repeated in the New Testament when some of the Lord’s disciples rejected His teachings and stopped following the Lord (John 6:60-66). Similarly, as a ministry who received revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ, we have witnessed how people’s hearts became hardened against God even after they heard from Him personally. Is it not reminiscent of Peter after having seen Christ’s glory, He still denied knowing the Lord (Matthew 26:69-75) while we understand that Peter’s denial was based on fearing for his life. Today, some Christians has simply lost love and their fear for the Lord that is why when God’s love grows cold in them they start treating their brethren whom they ‘ate from the same spiritual table’ with disdain and as enemies of the truth.

In conclusion, what we need is the Strong Hand of the Lord upon our lives to drive away the deceitfulness in our hearts which turns us against God and the community of believers. Finally brethren, if we fall into the habit of allowing deceitfulness to control us, we need to consider our salvation and the vow of love and fear we pledged to the Lord (Psalm 32:5; Acts 3:19). Furthermore, we must remember that the Lord is displeased when we make a united effort to be a stumbling block to others and to consider a Christian brother or sister as an enemy (Romans 14:13-23) and being a Christian, we are required to be humble, faithful and truthful in all we do in keeping with our High and Lofty calling in Christ (Matthew 18:1-5).

Have you allowed your heart to deceive you and justified your ungodly character towards your brethren to influence your behaviour? Are you feeling that you are following your own ways or that of the world? If you desire true peace and you long to restore your relationship with God who is our refuge here is a suggested Prayer of Sincere Repentance to get you started. For any questions or comments on this article or our ministry, please contact us.


God’s peace and abundant grace be upon you in Jesus name!

Brother Glenn.