Fog is so deceiving. It is disorienting and confusing. It makes things seems farther than they are. It hides things until you are right up on them. It causes the light to reflect back instead of shining forward. This is why we get phrases like “fog of war,” “in a fog,” “foggy head,” etc. I immediately thought of fog when I was reading 1 John this morning when I read “Let no one deceive you.” Don’t be confused John is saying – this is the fact. There are only two types of people: those who practic toward righteousness and those who make the practice of sinning.
I grew up learning to play the piano. Lessons every Thursday and practice during the week. My teacher, Mrs. Bailey, could always tell if I hadn’t practice sufficiently because I had not made enough progress or improvement. But practice was a chore sometimes. I had to do it daily for it to actually matter – a few times a week wouldn’t work. I was just dabbling. So, I would set my timer and practice every day. And the more I did, the better I became. Practice had to become a daily habit so when I went to my classes and I could demonstrate improvement. Afterall, practice makes perfect.
This is what John is saying. We are all practicing something – righteousness or sin. And you can’t dabble in practicing righteous because it won’t stick and you’ll backslide and you don’t improve. You are just deceiving yourself with your quasi practice of righteousness. You’re setting your timer to 5 minutes instead of 60 and telling yourself “you’ve practice.” But what you are really doing is practicing sin. And yes, we can practice that too. We can make a
sin a habit. And the more we do it, the better we become at lying to ourselves about what we are really doing.
Every day we choose to either live righteously or not. It is that simple. And the more righteous days we stack up the easier the next righteous days become. And this doesn’t mean there won’t be hard days or days who you don’t want to practice. Those days will happen. But what it does mean is on those days you’ve made practicing your habit so you’ll do it anyway because you don’t want to lose your progress and backslide.
And for those who practice sin, John says they are of the Devil who has been sinning from the beginning. He has been God’s enemy since the beginning. And when you decide to not practice righteousness, you are practicing sin. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking otherwise.
Clear out the fog in your mind. Truly evaluate what you practice each day. You are what you practice. Those who practice righteousness are of God. Those who practice sin are of the Devil.
Adonai's Appeal 