Creflo Dollar - Defining Self-Deception
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Paul warns believers not to deceive themselves by thinking worldly wisdom makes them truly wise; instead, they must become "fools" in the world's eyes to gain God's wisdom, as seen in 1 Corinthians 3:18, and he stresses that evil associations corrupt good character, urging us to stop fooling ourselves about our influences and motives.
Don't Fool Yourself: Worldly Wisdom Is Foolishness!
Today I want to deal with the subject, “Defining Self-deception.” What is it? I don’t want to leave it up to everybody to come up with their own definition. I want us to be on the same page. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18 in the King James, he says, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”
The Shocking Truth: God's Wisdom vs. World's "Smart"
In other words, the man that’s supposed to be wise in this world is on the level of a fool when it comes to talking about God’s wisdom. And he says, “Let no man deceive himself.” Now, look at the same verse of scripture in the Message translation. “Don’t fool yourself.” Now, I know we’re all quick to say, “Well, I’m not fooling myself,” but you don’t really know if you’re fooling yourself because you might be deceived.
Smoke Screens Everywhere – God Sees Through Them All
If you’re deceived, you don’t know that. “Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being relevant. Be God’s fool.” Yeah, boy. “That’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid.” He said, “It’s written in scripture, He exposes the hype of the hipsters. The master sees through the smoke screen of the know-it-alls.”
Hidden Danger: Evil Company Corrupts You Slowly
There’s a lot of smoke screens that are up in this day and time. A lot of smoke screens that are up on social media platforms. And he says, “God sees through the smoke screens.” And he wants to work with us so we can see through the smoke screens. He wants to work with us so we’ll stop fooling ourselves. Now, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15:33 in the King James.
You Think It Won't Affect You? Think Again!
And I’m gonna spend the rest of the time, we gotta talk about what this is, how this works. I need you to understand that. This is not gonna be a hallelujah, let’s do a cartwheel and dance in the Holy Ghost for a minute because I’m trying to get you to see you. He says again, “Be not deceived.” Well, what’s the deception here? “Evil communication corrupts good manners.”
How Hanging Around the Wrong Crowd Changes You
So, what happens is, we think it’s okay for us to hang around anything. And he says, “You’re being deceived because it corrupts the manners.” You hang around evil communication. Now that’s just not like evil talking, that’s a part of it, but it’s also talking about lifestyle, and the way you carry yourself, and evil communication corrupts. It corrupts but we don’t think it does.
The Sneaky Way Deception Takes Over Your Life
So, we hang around anything and we don’t think it’s gonna corrupt us until one day shows up and you sound just like them. Until one day shows up and you acting like them. Until one day shows up and now the norms and values of the world have become your normal and it’s become what you value because you’ve been hanging around people who say, “Well, I don’t agree with what y’all say in church, but I agree with this.”
From God's Truth to "My Truth" – The Big Lie
And then we go from the place where it’s no longer God’s absolute truth. So, we don’t agree with God’s absolute truth, we agree with, “Well, I’ve got my truth, and you have your truth,” and your truth is just a lie. Really what it is is what you have come to realize about yourself and you call it your truth. But there’s a truth that can deliver you from your truth.
Why Preparing This Message Was So Uncomfortable
I want you to know it was not a comfortable thing for me to prepare these teachings because I kept seeing me. The good news is, I was able to see me versus when you’re deceived you can’t see you. Are you following me now? So, let’s give a definition for self-deception as we work towards this.
Shocking Definition: You're Lying to Yourself!
Self-deception, it’s when someone convinces themselves of something that isn’t true. When someone convinces themselves of something that isn’t true or they avoid acknowledging a truth they find uncomfortable, self-deception. You convince yourself of something that isn’t true and you avoid acknowledging a truth that you find uncomfortable. You avoid acknowledging the truth that you exaggerate. “No, I don’t.”
Hiding Your Real Feelings, Motives, and Situation
You won’t even look at it before you deny it real quick, self-deception. Here’s the next definition. Self-deception is hiding the truth from ourselves about our true feelings, our motives, and our circumstances. So, when you’re deceived, you wanna hide the truth about you. The truth about your feelings, your true feelings. You wanna hide the truth about your true motives, the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Stop Hiding Behind Scripture Like a Shield
And you wanna hide the truth about your circumstances. And sometimes we hide the truth about these things. We hide it behind scripture. Does everybody know what I’m talking about? Certain things go on and you pull a scripture up right quick and you don’t really believe it, you just, it’s good to hide behind, okay. So, you don’t face the truth about your feelings. And we’ve been taught that for a long time.
Christians Aren't Supposed to Be Emotionless Robots
We were taught in the church that, you know, as a Christian you should be emotionless. I can’t tell you how far from the truth that is. The day you start acknowledging and recognizing your true feelings and your true emotions, the better you’re gonna be. But as long as you’re going around and somebody says, “How you feel?” “Oh, I’m blessed of the Lord and highly favored.”
Speak Faith Without Denying Your Real Struggles
Now I understand you’re trying to speak faith, but let me show you how to do that, okay. You won’t hide behind the scripture. “Well, how you doing today?” “Well, I’m feeling a little down and I’ve been dealing with some depression. But I believe that God has already made a way for me to get out of that.” You follow what I’m saying? So you’re not hiding behind the scripture. You’re standing on the scripture.
Exposing Hidden Motives – Even in "Good" Things
At the same time you’re acknowledging your true feelings. Or maybe you’re looking at your motives. Why did you do what you’re doing? We do the same thing with scripture. Why did you do what you’re doing? “Well, I’m doing it to glorify God.” No, you’re not. You’re doing it because you hope you get the business and get the money from it.
How One Lie Leads to a Hardened Heart
'Cause something happens if you keep this up. One level of deception will graduate you to another level of deception, and before you know it, you’ve become hardened in your heart and you don’t even know you’re deceived no more. You are now officially believing the lie. You’d be amazed how we lie to ourselves. I recently made my mind up because… yes, it doesn’t mean to be rugged, it doesn’t mean to be mean.
Speaking Truth in Love – Even When It's Awkward
You can speak the truth in love and you gotta learn how to do that. You gotta speak the truth in love because I was so concerned about, “I don’t wanna hurt your feelings. I don’t wanna disrupt anything.” So, I’m gonna tell you something that’s not really the whole truth. And then I was in prayer one time, God said, “That’s called a lie.” I said, “But Lord, if I say this they’re gonna freak.”
The Halitosis Example: Brutal Honesty Helps!
He says, “No, I’ll take care of that. You just do it in love.” “Well, how do I do it?” Listen, I love you and I appreciate you so much. But the truth of the matter is your breath stinks. How do you tell somebody that you have to see every single day in your face and they have chronic halitosis. You’re not helping them. They might even recognize it. They gargle, they did everything they could do.
Confrontation: The Key to Real Growth
Man, I’m looking for an honest church. I’m looking for people who know how to be cordial in what you do. Not mean, not disruptive, not just bodacious. But Lord help me, show me how to articulate this truth because confrontation brings about growth both for the person who confronts and the person who’s being confronted but we’re scared of that kind of stuff. And we most of the time just turn to scripture to use it to hide behind.
Denying Evidence: The Core of Self-Deception
Now I know this ain’t gonna be one of them hallelujah do a cartwheel service. But at least your eyes are gonna be open to who you really are, amen. Here’s the next one. When we’re deceiving ourselves we’re denying evidence. When we’re deceiving ourselves, we’re denying logic. When we’re deceiving ourselves, we’re denying reality. And then what happens? And rationalizing choices or behaviors to serve us a false narrative.
Rationalizing = Making Excuses for Bad Choices
We’re not seeing or viewing things accurately. Now when you’re rationalizing something, and this is how you deceive yourself when you start rationalizing. To rationalize is an attempt to explain or to justify your own or another’s behavior or an attitude with logic or plausible reasons even if these are not true or even if they’re not appropriate. It’s basically an excuse.
You're Believing Your Own Fake Story!
You’re basically saying, “I’m gonna give you an explanation,” or “I’m gonna justify this behavior that I have. I’m gonna justify this attitude that I have. And here’s the reason why I have this attitude.” And even if it’s not appropriate, even if it’s not true, you’re deceiving yourself because you’re denying the evidence. I mean, you’re actually doing this thing, but you’re denying the evidence.
This Generation's Blind Spot: Not Seeing Reality
And you’re trying to use excuses and rationalize your choices and your behaviors to serve that false narrative that you have. And so, you gotta get up something to serve this false narrative that you carry. You believe in the story you tell yourself. We’re not seeing or viewing things accurately. There’s one thing I noticed about this generation. They’re not viewing things accurately.
Fired for Being Late? "It Was Only 2 Minutes!"
You know, it’s like, you’re fired. Why are you fired? 'Cause you came to your job late ten times. “I was only late for two minutes.” “Dude, who said two minutes was okay?” You’re not viewing things accurately. I mean, you’re walking around like you are a model in a magazine and you’re not seeing things accurately. And you’re rationalizing these things to try to justify a false narrative. Gotta stop doing that.
Self-Deception: Your Worst Enemy in Disguise
Self-deception is often a defense mechanism. It’s used for self protection. And it can be used for self enhancement as well, but most of the time it’s to defend something. Why are you in self-deception? I know it’s a defense mechanism. And so, when I see people walking in self-deception and they’re deceiving themselves, the first thing I think is, “What are they defending? What happened?”
Sabotage Alert: You're Betraying Yourself!
It often becomes a form of, when you do that, when you use that that way, it becomes a form of sabotage and betrayal of yourself. Sabotage and betraying yourself because why? It’s denying reality. It’s denying what’s real and what’s true. And when we deceive ourselves, we become our own enemy posing as a friend. I need to say that again.
Blame Game: Projecting Faults Onto Everyone Else
When we deceive ourselves, we become our own enemy posing as a friend. It’s not gonna end up right. Eventually, you’re gonna have to see the sabotage and you’re gonna have to see the destruction of what comes when you keep doing that. Self-deception can involve denial of a hard truth, minimizing of painful matters. See that defense mechanism? Or projection of faults on the others.
Stop Blaming Your Parents for Everything!
A lot of times when people are in self-deception, blame becomes the name of their game. I’m in self-deception, so is you, and you, and you. And it’s you, and it’s you, and it’s y’all. And it’s what y’all did. And if y’all had raised me right, then I wouldn’t have no problems. Can I get a witness in here?
My Story: That Time I Got Knocked Out
Okay, I never claimed to be a perfect father or parent. So, whatever I didn’t do right, 'cause I had parents and my parents were not perfect and they were not flawless. And they did things that I wondered about, and you know. But you know, I wasn’t allowed to express myself. See, the kids today, they’re being trained to express themselves and their parents are raising them up so they could…
Old-School Discipline vs. Today's TikTok Advice
I tried expressing myself one morning when I was on my way to school. And that was the days when you had to get your parents to sign your report card. And my dad looked at the report card and signed it. And I did pretty good but I had a C on something. It was a hard subject, physics or something. And he said, “You need to bring that up.” I said, “Well, you probably couldn’t have done no better than what I did.”
Respect Your Parents – They Gave You Life!
Oh, yeah I did. And there was something sudden that happened. All of a sudden, blackness filled the room. I felt like I was floating and stars came. And I realized I had been knocked out. I was never enthusiastic about expressing myself after that day. And so, even though I got knocked out, I didn’t call nobody and say, “That was abuse.” I thought it was a necessary correction, it worked.
No Perfect Parents – Trust Jesus to Fix It
What I am saying is that whatever they did wrong or didn’t do right, it was up to me to grow up, meet Jesus, and whatever I lacked from their parenting, he would take care of. And so, the same way is true here. Don’t beat your parents up because you heard something on TikTok. And you got to see, 'cause they told you, “You need to do this with your parent and you need to do that with your parent.” Don’t do none of that.
Gen Z Wake-Up Call: Work Ethic Matters
Respect them 'cause they gave you life. My mama made me go see my grandmama every week. “I ain’t feel like going see grandma every…” “You need to go see her…” “Why?” “She ain’t gonna be here always. You need to go see her.” That’s the kind of stuff we were raised with. So, we’re not perfect parents. You can take that off the plate. Nobody in here is a perfect parent.
The Next Generation: Revival or Rebellion?
But we got strange deception going on and this generation is rising up. They’re moving into the job market now. And they don’t wanna go to work. And they don’t wanna be on time. And they wanna dress like they wanna dress. And they wanna act like they wanna act. And they wanna look at videos while they’re at work. And right now, there is a large number of Gen Zs that have been dismissed from the job market because people ain’t ready to deal with it.
Hope for Gen Z: Greatest Generation Coming?
On the other hand, they can start their own business and they can do all that. “I don’t wanna work for you 'cause I’m a planner.” But the Gen Z generation, two things will happen. At the same time they’re leaving church, there’s a revival going on. I don’t understand it. Whole bunch of Gen Zs getting saved and a lot of 'em leaving church, but a whole bunch of them getting saved. I trust God with this next generation that it is gonna be one of the greatest generations that have ever entered the planet, I do.
Final Warning: Stop Deceiving Yourselves Now!
Okay, so self-deception can involve denial of hard truths. And you do that to minimize the painful matters. Projections of faults onto other people. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 3:18 in the NLT. He says, “Stop deceiving yourselves. Stop deceiving yourselves.” We need to figure out, “How do you know when you’re deceiving yourself?” He’s telling us to stop. It’s pretty clear so far he’s saying, “Stop fooling yourself, stop deceiving yourself.” Eventually we’re gonna have to talk about, “Well, how do we know we’re deceiving ourselves?”