“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10
This happens to be today’s verse of the day. This also happens to be very timely with what Justin Peters has recently brought to light about pastors who regurgitate the same message and own experiences that are not even theirs!
This dose of reality is less than two minutes.
In his video exposé, it is quite sad to witness that one pastor does not even write his own sermons! He has a whole bunch of people research it for him and grab content from influencers/good communicators. Is that a pastor? I think not. It is an actor pretending to be one.
I don’t have to imagine how many people do the same thing on this copy and paste conducive platform. I saw one who put a song lyric into a picture and made her readers believe she said those very exact words. I also read from some blog expert that some people go into blogging just to make money even when they don’t even like the topics they are addressing. We can clearly see the motivation there.
Apply this to someone who pretends to be a Christian who isn’t even one. I’ve mentioned this before, but this is something similar to learning spiritual insights from Judas. YIKES!!! He even had the appearance of caring for the poor and the oppressed, but Scripture exposed his duplicity (John 12:4-6). If you begin to think exposing evil is judgmental, then you must be having a problem with this scriptural mandate in Ephesians 5:11, “Do not participate in the useless deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;”
It is consistent with Scripture to expose someone so that they may come to their senses- God exposed Abraham to Abimelech via a dream (Genesis 20:1-7), Moses got exposed when an Israelite called into account what he did to the Egyptian (Exodus 2:14), David being confronted by Nathan about Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:1-10), Haman’s plot for genocide being uncovered (Esther 4:1-8), Ananias & Sapphira being confronted by Peter (Acts 5:1-11) and the list goes on. Some of the ones mentioned were judged instantly, but God’s desire is for people to turn from their evil ways (Joel 2:13). The worst thing is one who presents something so very convincingly and they didn’t even get that insight on their own.
To the Christian:
Share your own biblical insights. While it is totally possible that people can arrive to similar thoughts since the Holy Spirit is the one who gives understanding without favoritism when it comes to Scripture, you are not being honest about where you truly are in your walk when you constantly promote someone else’s study as if it were your own. This might work on the click-for-click people, but that is as far as it goes. It will not fool the Spirit-led believer as we can clearly see in Revelation 2:2,
“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;”
Integrity is a high calling. No one in their right mind would say that the Christian walk is a piece of cake.
“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.”
Proverbs 10:9