Linda and I are going to have our 41st anniversary next month (24May09), and we'll both be sixty years old this summer. We've been friends ever since we first met, and we started going together when we were both 14 years old; we know each other really well. I'm reminded of what the Apostle Paul told the Christians at Colosse (Colossians 1:10), how that he was praying for them - to not just know Christ, but - to have the strongest knowledge of Christ (epignosis). Linda and I don't just know each other, we really know each other.
With that said, let me say this, we all need to know that Jesus Christ is God; He is God manifested, or God in the flesh. But, we also need to know Him as our Savior, for that is the only thing that gives us eternal life. Many folks consider themselves Christians and call themselves Christians, but only some of those folks are truly trusting Christ as their eternal Savior, they are Christians indeed. It was to folks like that whom Paul was directly talking to in the church there at Colosse over nineteen hundred years ago. By encouraging those Christians, who had trusted in Christ for salvation to have an "epignosis" of Christ or a deeper knowledge of Christ, Paul was encouraging them to make Jesus Christ a priority, to make Him preeminent.
Many, if not most people who consider themselves Christians, do not even have a saving knowledge of Christ, let alone have they made Him preeminent in their lives. Oh, you think I am wrong, or just mistaken? Hmmm, consider what the Holy Spirit had Jeremiah pen down, Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" What that tells us is that we even deceive ourselves. You see not only can we be deceived by our employers, our government officials, politicians, relatives, friends, and internet schemes, etc., but we even deceive ourselves. There are untold millions of people who are going to spend a Godless eternity in Hell because they have been deceived - by their own heart.
Consider this: I've recently been studying heavily in the Gospels about the passover season, and Christ's last week before He turned himself into the Jewish religious hierarchy to be tortured and executed so that all who will may have Eternal Salvation. Just a week before Jesus was crucified, He was headed up to Jerusalem from the Decapolis area (on the eastern side of the Jordan River). He had to cross the river the went into Jericho where He did several things, including went into the home of Zacchaeus who had climbed up into a sycomore tree, and He healed a couple blind men, one being Bartimaeus - before heading on up to Jerusalem to be crucified
That was a power packed week, and just before going into Jerusalem, Jesus stayed in Simon's home in Bethany. That was also the home of Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus - the same Lazarus that Jesus had previously raised from the dead. Now, maybe from her nefarious past, Mary had acquired an expensive alabaster box of very expensive ointment - possibly worth a year's wages - that she opened and used to anoint Jesus' head as he sat at supper. She did that because she realized that Christ was God in the flesh, and that, as He had said, He was about to be murdered unjustly to pay for man's sins.
If you will recall, ever since the marriage at Cana when Christ turned the water to wine He had been saying "my hour has not yet come," but now - three years later - He announce that the time was come for His crucifixion. Mary realized what was about to happen, and what she did with that ointment was of pure love and worship. But, contrast that with what Judas did in the same incident; we see in John chapter 12, and Mark chapter 14 that Judas (who kept the group's finances, and was a thief) fussed and murmured to the other eleven that what Mary did was wrong. He said that the ointment w/box could have been sold for a lot of money to give to the poor. What Mary did was out of selfless love and adoration, but what Judas did was out of selfishness and evil jealously; furthermore, Judas didn't keep it to himself, but tried to get the other disciples to go along with him.
Now, all that was background for the main point that I am trying to get across. As I studied the passage in Mark 14 (for the umpteenth time since I've been a missionary-pastor) at the end of verse 5 it struck me where it says, "And they murmured against her." Did you see that, they murmured it clearly says. Wow, that explains a whole bunch of things! They clearly means that the other disciples - the men who would become The Apostles - fell into the beguiling influence of Judas. Those men actually murmured against The Savior. It makes me think of the word "mutiny."
Do you remember how this started out, I named this "...Our Hearts are Deceitfully Wicked" and I know that mine is deceitful - oh, wicked man that I am. I'm not any better than Christ's disciples. I just hope that if I had been in a similar situation, that I would have been faithful to The Lord, and that I wouldn't have not only kept my mouth shut, but would have spoken up for Him. I'm glad that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we just confess them to Him. Sometimes I do things, that I have to check myself for my motive as my heart can even deceive myself.
Anyhow, is it any wonder why just a couple days later at the Passover Supper in the upper room that the disciples, one by one, asked Jesus, "Is It I" when Jesus announced that "one of you which eateth with me shall betray me." I believe that they all realized that each one was capable of betraying Jesus, after that incident with Mary and the alabaster box.
Yes, all of us have hearts that are deceitfully wicked. We even fool ourselves into thinking something different. We often do that by rationalizing why we don't go to church when we should, or deceive ourselves into doing something we shouldn't do. But, of it all the most deceitful thing we do to ourselves is when we deceive ourselves into thinking we are Christians with a Heavenly home awaiting us, when we've never really been saved. There are going to be a whole bunch of folks in Hell who have deceived themselves into thinking that they are good Christians.
Has your mind been deceiving you? My recommendation to you right now is to fall prone on the floor and ask Jesus to forgive you and save you. Do it right now! He will forgive you and make you a new creature, and Jesus Christ is the only one who can do it.
Respectfully, Chuck Truitt BIMI Missionary/Pastor for over 26 yearspresently serving in Ansbach, Germanyat the Berean Baptist Church h ttp:/ /www. berea nansb ach.o rg/
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