Free of Deception – The Presidential Prayer Team

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. – Colossians 2:8

Can you deceive yourself? That question will keep a room of philosophers going for hours. But every deception in your life has one thing in common – YOU! Benjamin Franklin quipped, “Who has deceived thee so often as thyself.”

Followers of Christ in the early church came from pagan cults and philosophies as well as Jewish traditions embedded in their ancient Mediterranean world. It is no surprise that, in a short time, pagan ideas worked their way into the practices of the church. In Colossae, they were teaching the joy of salvation in Christ PLUS a combination of their old familiar rituals like circumcision and observing festivals. Their hybrid faith was not God’s pure gospel. The apostle Paul, as their spiritual father took pen in hand to root out self-designed deceptions. His letter left us an excellent outline of God’s gift of salvation through Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. He eloquently reminds all readers of the sufficiency in that precious blood with no need for human enhancement.

Does any of this sound familiar? The world has not changed much. God planned for every person to know Him, and the spirit of deception still twists that message to keep as many as possible away from such glorious truth. Examine your life today. Are you allowing anything to be added to simple trust in Christ? Ask the Lord to reveal any deception that has crept in!

Pray for American churches to declare the clear gospel of Jesus Christ. Ask that members of national leadership will find their way past any deception and into an authentic relationship with God through His Son alone.

Today’s Verse: Colossians 2:8

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: Acts 4:8-12

⁸Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, ⁹if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, ¹⁰let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. ¹¹This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. ¹²And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”