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There is a verse that should make us sit up and take a look at ourselves, "with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved" (2Th.2:10). If we want to be saved, we must love the truth. We may even learn much truth about God, but if we don't like to look at the truth about our own spiritual condition or situation, how can we get saved? The general truth about us is that we are sinners in the sight of God. Until we realise that and admit it to God and turn away from our sinful life to living to be pleasing to God, we cannot even receive forgiveness from God. Even after being forgiven, if we do not recognise the particular sins we are falling into, we will not seek God for victory. But because many Christian teachers are over-emphasising how God has justified us, credited the righteousness of Jesus to us and taken away all condemnation from us, many Christians are not encouraged to examine their present, actual situation.

If the doctrine we believe says that God sees the righteousness of Jesus when He looks at us, but we see that we are still struggling with sin in ordinary life, we are tempted to pretend. We can start declaring that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, etc. (2Co.5:21). If we are righteousness, then, of course, we cannot be sinning at the same time. And then we do not look at the actual sinfulness we can see, if we looked, in our practical life. Pretending to oneself is deceiving oneself, and that deception is stronger than even that from outside. We then shut ourselves away from any more truth that God wants to give us.

Satan is using God's word to deceive us into believing things about us that are really not true in us. What we need to do is to understand the difference between justification and sanctification. Justification is what God does in order to accept us as His children. For that, since He cannot accept us with our sinfulness, He places our sins on Jesus and credits the righteousness of Jesus to us, making our account book clear. That makes it possible for Him to accept us. But then, sanctification is the next process by which God wants to make us actually righteous in our behaviour. He does that by giving us help to stop doing the sinful things we have been doing and to start doing the will of God. This can happen only when we deny ourselves when we are tempted to do wrong, and obey God (Ro.6:12-14). Obviously, this will not happen if we are telling ourselves we are already righteous in Christ and refuse to face the reality in our life.

What we must remember is that our acceptance by God is a matter of accounts which the Judge looks at. But when it comes to sanctification, it is about the actual way we live. God wants not only to forgive our sins, but also to save us from our sins. For this we must have a love for the truth or reality, and allow the Holy Spirit to show us where we are wrong.

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