Oh Yes – I Am The Great Pretender

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” –  James 1:13-15

I woke up this morning with that verse on my mind. Waking up to the thought of a scripture happens to me, a lot.  I take it as a prompting to write.  It is not like I scan the Bible to find a verse or topic – it is just like “boom” there it is. Sound strange?  Yesterday I wrote about good and bad pretending as defined by C.S. Lewis. When we live our lives with un-confessed sin – we are bad pretenders.  Some of you will remember the song, “Great Pretender”

“Oh-oh, yes I'm the great pretender. Pretending that I'm doing well. My need is such I pretend too much ….. Oh yes I'm the great pretender. Just laughin' and gay like a clown. I seem to be what I'm not, you see. I'm wearin' my heart like a crown. Pretending that you're (that would the Spirit) still around.” – The Platters, November 3, 1955

We are so afraid of what others will think of us if they only knew that we sin and we call ourselves Christians.  So we pretend like we don’t sin – when everyone already knows that we do.  Kind of like the children’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”  Everybody knew that he was in his skivvies, he was acting like he was actually wearing some beautiful clothes.  Then a little boy cried out “Look he doesn’t’ have any clothes on!”  Like someone saying of me, “Look! He is a sinner!” Then the pious will cry out in indignation, “And he calls himself a Christian!” 

The struggle we have with sin is real, as you well now.  How we respond to the sin, when we sin, and we will sin, will determine whether we are a good or bad pretender.  As a Christian, living with sin is spiritually deadly.  Sin brings separation – not eternal separation – but it incapacitates us spiritually.  We are living in disobedience even though we pretend that we are not.  It does not fool God.  Do you remember the woman at the well?  Jesus saw past her pretenses and saw her sin. Our sin may be veiled from the world but it is unveiled before God. The solution is a simple one.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” – 1 John 1:8-10

Confession and repentance brings restoration.  We can’t live rightly with unconfessed sin – don’t believe the lie that a little sin doesn’t matter – James wrote that if we break any part of the law we have broken the whole law. (James 2:9-11) It is all or nothing – no compromise with sin is acceptable to God. 

“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” – Jude 24-25

By Faith Alone By His Grace Alone And For His Glory Alone