Reflecting Deflections: Defending Sin Through Deceitfulness

 The heart is deceitful above all things,
      and desperately sick;
   who can understand it?
(Jeremiah 17:9)

It is a recurring cycle of history. A division occurs in a family, or in a friendship, or in a church. Both parties, either hurt or angry, go about slandering the other, even hoping to inflict damage. With a bubbling desire to vent to someone else, we must soften the blow of our own feelings of guilt that we know are sure to come, so we begin the gossip with something like, "I know I shouldn't say this, but...," or "Look, I love this person to death, but...." With those little conjunctions "but," we justify the twisting knife of sin, moving on to do the very thing that is not loving of neighbor, which is to tell our audience all of the terrible things the offender did. We have hopes that we can get as many people against them as possible, including our mutual acquaintances or mutual family members.

Those mutuals then surreptitiously de-friend said offender(s) from Facebook. We, therefore, bask in the victory that we have yet another person on our side! O, how it feels good to have told the story for the umpteenth time, and all the while the heart grows colder, and reconciliation is that much further away.

Reflections Minimize Deflections

What, then, is the problem? The problem is a missing component, something that we introverts know about all too well: reflection. After sin has come to fruition, reflecting on the event can be done in one of two ways: (1) We can replay the even in our minds and consider all the things we could have said to defend ourselves further, things that we could have used against our relative, or (2) we can reflect in such a way so as to see all the ways in which we did not respond properly, in all the ways we were unloving and were gratifying the desire of the flesh (Gal 5:13-16), in all the ways we were not walking in/by/through the Holy Spirit. We are hard-wired to defend ourselves instead, to justify our actions, even if we know we are wrong.

Reflection on past events allows us Christians to minimize deflection and self-justification, if done in truth. So when gossiping about others, for instance, we tend to deflect any of our own faults either (a) by design, or (b) because we are yet unaware of those faults. Either way, we are not off the hook. Either way, true reconciliation is not possible. That is a heart that was deceived...

So My Heart Is Deceived. I Am Who I Am!

How many times I have heard this deflection pattern, yes in my own life of late as well! “I am who I am; I am a sinner in progress.” Can you hear the deceit? Do you see the deflection? To deflect charges before any serious reflection is to defend and justify sin. It is to say with the Pharisee, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men...” (Luke 18:11). But you are like other men, and so am I.

    I the LORD search the heart
      and test the mind,
                  to give every man according to his ways,
      according to the fruit of his deeds.
(Jeremiah 17:10)

And what shall we say about ourselves when we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ? He searches hearts, he sees what we do not see and what we cannot see. Everyone of us laid bare before God would do the same thing as Isaiah and Peter: fall prostrate before Him and say, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

So to those of us who use the, “I'm a carnal Christian” excuse to justify our slander and gossip, Paul then says the following:

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of...reviling...not even to eat with such a one...Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: ...[no] revilers...will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor 5:11; 6:10).

What is a Reviler?  

Modern translation render (loidros) something like “reviler,” “abuser,” “verbally abusive,” etc., and I think that the Greek word may encompass all of these things, but sometimes the word verbally abusive conjures, in my mind, yelling at someone with profanities. I think in our own modern tongue that these descriptions lack room for words like “slanderer,” or maybe in today's language, a “backbiter.” Those who slander and abuse the reputation of other people often do so with an element of truth, but they twist most of the facts to allow for the final image of their victim to come out marred, so that others might think poorly of the victim and de-friend them on Facebook or turn other relatives, friends, or church family against them. O, how the heart is deceived! For look at your own heart, Christian...

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, passing judgment; for when you judge someone else, you are passing judgment against yourself; since you who are judging do the same things he does. We know that God’s judgment lands impartially on those who do such things; do you think that you, a mere man passing judgment on others who do such things, yet doing them yourself, will escape the judgment of God? (Romans 2:1-3, CJB)

Sinner in progress or not, to gratify the flesh against others, especially against those of the household of the faith (those redeemed by Christ), may say much about your heart towards God (cf. 1 Jn 4:8). “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” That is a promise. Terrifying and negative, but a promise, nonetheless, for the opposite of loving one's neighbor is to revile, to hate them.

 Reflections on Deflection

Yes, I know that we hate having to hear Jeremiah 17:9. Christians like John Eldredge have made clear their disdain for this verse because we as Christians have been given a new heart (Jer. 31). But I think that, even though this new heart we have been given has a capacity for perfect love, it is a heart that grows in understanding through revelation from God in His Word, in the lives of other saints, in the loving rebuke by a friend. The heart is still being deceived at times, and yet it is still loving God's commands. We live in the kingdom of God which is both here now, and yet not here fully. So I believe our hearts reflect such a similar existence as well. I could be wrong about that. 

Maybe we have a good heart and either choose to walk by flesh or to walk by the Spirit. But how often have you been convicted of something in the Word of which you were unaware before that? You cannot walk by Spirit in something you do not see or understand, with the possible exception of the hand of God working through your heart.

I have learned so much about my heart lately. I believe, sincerely, that to have an deep knowledge of the human heart is to be able to more effectively minister to others. In my own life recently, I have seen how reflection on my sins has allowed for me to pray for the Lord to work on my heart so that I might love more fully. When family has been torn apart, I can see the hand of God working revelation into my life, showing me where I have been a huge participant in the divisions, but also in the slander, in the reviling, in the verbal abuse. These reflections have allowed me to stop deflecting and shielding myself from the truth so that healing can come to my heart. I want to be molded into the image of Christ Jesus. To love neighbor as self, truly, shows how my heart is towards God...

But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes...Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him...If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 2:11; 3:15; 4:20)

Slander is hatred, brothers and sisters. Gossip is hatred. According to John, hatred is murder! It is murder because murder is purposeful, calculated, evil thoughts and speech about other people; it is the beginning step toward actual murder. I believe that if there were no punishments in this life for murder, we would be killing each other off rapidly! They did it to Jesus when He came and walked in the light. They plotted to kill Him (John 11:53), and they did it! Jesus proved to many of the Jews that they did not love God (John 8:44), because they hated the light and therefore hated their neighbors, even to the point of plotting to kill innocent Lazarus after being resurrected (John 12:9-11).

Conclusion

How long must we put ourselves through it again and again? To gossip and slander, to verbally abuse and hate, these things only pronounce judgment on ourselves. The question then is, if we hear the Spirit speaking into our hearts now, will we recoil into the darkness we love so much, loving the hardening of our hearts, deflecting the truth, sending insults hurling at those made in the image of God? Or will we walk into the light, reflect on our own misdeeds, hear his voice and repent?

Let us maximize healing through reflection and revelation of our past sins. Let us ask the Lord to cleanse our hearts of God-hating, man-killing sins. Let us ask Him for the grace, the effectual grace, which will allow us to see that which is in our hearts, that which we cannot see now. Then we can ask Him to overcome that part of our lives which the apostle John deemed murder. Murderers do not enter the Kingdom of God, brothers and sisters. Carnal Christianity will not be a dismissed excuse before the Throne. He gives to “every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jer. 17:10). Those who are redeemed by the Cross of Christ Jesus are those who love God and neighbor with a new heart. They will enter the Kingdom. It is they that reflect God's character.

We will fall at times. O, we will fall. But we have a promise of grace, and we trust in the work of Spirit through Christ's work alone to change us. Trust the promise. Where you are powerless to love the way God does, His Spirit is able to move our new hearts to cherish Christ and to keep His commandments, reflecting the love of Christ back onto others, even if they refuse to love you back.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)

A promise is given for whichever path we take, the narrow or the BROAD: "I the LORD...give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds."