"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matt 7:24-27) Nobody sets out in life determined to hurt themselves. Nobody gets up in the morning and decides, "I am going to deceive myself today!" Self deceit arises from people thinking that they are deceiving others, until they realise that they had been deceiving themselves all along. Anybody will quit doing what they are doing if they realise that they are actually hurting themselves; but that is the danger of self deceit - no one realises that they have been deceiving themselves until it is already late. Thinking that we are building for our friend, we use cheap and inferior materials to build... until we realise that the house we are building is actually a parting gift our friend wants to surprise us with. Then it dawns on us that we have deceived ourselves!.
I heard this story about a man who always built for a millionaire friend. For years he built many houses for this millionaire. He was faithful and built these houses with strong and quality materials; and this pleased the millionaire greatly. But this builder was always bothered that this millionaire doesn't pay him well enough. In his mind, he thought I have been building houses for this man over the years - not even once has he asked me if I have a house or even pay me good money to set myself up - and he calls himself my friend.
While he was deliberating on this, he received another call from the millionaire who said to him, "Friend, you will build one last house for me. And this one is going to be a house bigger and better than all the houses you have built for me over the years. So I will want you to use materials that are two times stronger than the ones you have been using. I will give you the money".
After the builder received this call. he said to himself. "His last house, huh? Ok. This is my last chance to pay myself". Long story short: he used materials cheaper and more inferior than the once he had been using even though he received the money for materials twice the cost and quality of the previous ones. And with the materials he used, this house will not withstand any strong wind or harsh weather. In fact, the house had the possibility of collapsing within three month, but he didn't care. In the end, he made so much money from this building that he was so happy.
After the building was completed, he went to hand the keys over to his millionaire friend. And then to his greatest surprise, his millionaire friend turned to him and said : "That is my gift for you for all these years of faithfulness. The house is your". And immedaitely the builder, realising what he had done to himself started crying in regret!
The truth is people who hear the word of God and refuse to do it usually think they are deceiving their pastor, or their parents or their spouse or their fellowship co-ordinator or even God. But little do they know that they are deceiving themselves. Jesus says they are like this builder who built his house on the sand (on weak foundation and with inferiror quality) The wind blows and the house comes crashing down. The lives you think you are building, the business you think you are building, the career you think you building, the marriage or relationship you think you are building which is causing you to neglect the commandments and the word of God, wil come crashing down because you are building on the sand. You may not know this but the Bible says you are merely deceiving yourself i.e wasting your time and energy building something that will not last. That's self deceit!
Prayer
I pray for you today that you will find your way back to doing the word of God. May God grant you the grace and will to cut off everything that is drawing you away from doing God's word in Jesus name. Amen