He who sitting in the dark house
Peering from its windows
Into the daylight without
And reveling in the glory of the day
Also chooses, to our surprise,
Not to notice that he does not
Live in the daylight himself,
But in the dark house,
Where he has made for himself
A twisted religion from pretending
With the aid of its shades,
Which he may raise and lower at will.
And how can a good mind
Escape any conclusion but that
The man will not come into the light
For fear that his evil deeds
Will be exposed?
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 3:19-21. NIV
Many millions live this way, either fascinated in various ways by Jesus, or at least afraid to ignore him altogether
And “church” becomes something of an idol for them. They refuse the full and proper interaction with God’s word that he intended, and settle for “church” instead—feeding from whatever energy and attention they find there, hoping that the difference between that and pleasing God will not come up.
But it will:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Jesus. John 7:21-23. NIV
When passages like this come up, they draw the shades so they can’t see them. But when passages like John 3:16 are in view, they raise the shades and go on and on about how glorious is the gospel of Christ. This is the double-minded, duplicitous, cognitive-dissonance way of life lived by so many millions who claim Jesus as their master.
But this world, of course, does not bear the character that it would have if all 2,000,000,000 who claim the name of Jesus were actually doing his will.
And they know better. Deep in their hearts and minds, they know they should be doing better, but they refuse to see it the way Jesus does. For he called those who call him “Lord”, but do not do his will “evildoers”. And they will not agree with him about this. So whenever it comes up, that’s when they’ll whip those shades shut, so they can keep pretending that they’re OK in the sight of God.
And they will gaslight like a narcissist anybody who dares to say they are not OK. They will turn the tables and accuse them of whatever it takes to help themselves keep pretending it isn’t so. They will claim they are simply misunderstood, or they will attack their critics’ motives or their “tone”, or whatever else they can think of to attack. And if they can’t find anything, they’re likely to make something up.
And this is what they do—which is quite a different personality from the one for which they want to be known—from the nice man who just can’t get out of his house, but adores Jesus with a great passion.
And it is a lie.
A wicked lie.
