THE LIGHT, SELF-DECEIT, AND THE CONDEMNATION

 

 

She told the group, “God is love. He is also omnipotent. To send any of his children to eternal hell, when he could have done otherwise, is eternal cruelty...Jesus is the ultimate love. The idea that he will condemn anyone goes against everything he taught.”

Does it? Jesus taught a parable about a rich man who refused to give the poor and sickly Lazarus even the crumbs from his table. Even the dogs treated him better. They at least licked his open sores.

Both died. Lazarus was escorted to a place of comfort, beside Abraham. The rich man found himself in a place of torment - Hades - where he cried out:

• “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” (Luke 16:24)

He cried for mercy. However, he didn’t ask to be forgiven or to be reconciled to God so that he too would live in a place of joy. He didn’t even pray to God. God seemed to have no place in his thinking. Instead, he was primarily interested in just a little bit of comfort.

This is reminiscent of the reaction of those who will be excluded from the Kingdom:

• “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.” (Luke 13:28)

According to Jesus, their suffering wouldn’t be the product of God’s proactive moves to torture them, but their eternal loss of privilege and the blessings of the Kingdom. But how and why did they lose this Kingdom?

The Luke 16 passage helps us to understand this. It seems that their loss is a matter of choice—self-condemnation. The condemned will get the very thing that they have chosen - a comfortable dwelling place in the darkness away from the scrutiny of the Light

• “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”(John 3:18-20)

How are they already condemned? According to Jesus, they are self-condemned by their refusal to come into the Light to confess their sins. The rich man also seems to have been unwilling to examine himself and confess. Even in Hades, he seems unwilling to surrender his inflated superior status. In two instances, he requested that Abraham send the lowly Lazarus to do his bidding, as if Lazarus would be eternally beneath him. Therefore, Abraham chided him about his obvious guilt so that he might confess and find mercy:

• “But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.’” (Luke 16:25)

It wasn’t that suffering had entitled Lazarus or that the rich man’s comfort and riches had dis-entitled him. After all, Abraham had also been a wealthy man, but he trusted in the Lord and came into His Light.

Instead, confession and repentance weren’t his thing. Perhaps, the invitation might pertain more to his brothers, who might have had something to confess:

• “And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him [Lazarus] to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'" (Luke 16:27-31)

The rich man recognized that his brothers needed to repent. In Jesus’ parable, Abraham answered that a lack of evidence wasn’t the problem. They already had the self-authenticating Hebrew Scriptures. Instead, the problem was an aversion to the Light and a love of the darkness. Their love of the darkness also would condemn them.

We cannot blame the Savior for our condemnation. We chose it for ourselves. Jesus had cried over His people:

• “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37)
  

The self-condemned are unwilling to abide in the Light of truth. The darkness of self-deceit is more comforting, even in a place of torment, than the scrutiny of the Savior. Scripture testifies that the fault is not God’s but ours.

 

SELF-ACCEPTANCE, SELF-DECEIT, AND MASKS

What happens when we wear a mask, and I’m not talking about a Covid-19 mask, but a mask that doesn’t allow others to see “the real me?” Nor am I talking about a temporary mask, which we wear when we have a job interview or on a first date. Instead, I’m talking about a mask we wear when we even go to bed or take a shower – a full-time mask, which hides us from even knowing ourselves.

Did you ever feel that you want the freedom to just be yourself but didn’t know how? Why not? Because you forgot who you are and were perplexed about how to even be you!

For years, I felt that way. I wanted to be me and to be free of what others thought of me but was clueless about how to do this. I was trapped behind my mask and couldn’t remove it, even when I was alone.

This creates a lot of problems. When you hide yourself from others, they cannot know you and, therefore, can’t feel comfortable with you. They might feel that there is a distance but might not be able to pinpoint it. Consequently, they cannot have a real conversation with you, since they don’t know who they are talking to.

Why do we wear a mask to begin with? We want others to approve of us and fear that they will not. This is because we do not approve of ourselves and feel that we are not worthy of love. Therefore, we try to be someone else. One way to do this was like the central figure in a Woody Allen movie. He tried to be just like the one his was presently with, hoping to win their approval.

Pathetic? Yes! It is a form of psychological imprisonment to be so dependent upon what others think of you that you lose yourself. You become so dependent upon them that you even hate them when they don’t seem to approve of you or approve of someone else more than you.

Wearing a mask also prevents any growth or psychological integration, the ability to center and control yourself like a karate expert. Why is this? If you don’t know yourself and what you need to correct, you cannot manage yourself properly. Whatever we manage well, we must first understand, but when we are self-deceived, a working understanding is no longer possible.

How can we learn to accept ourselves the way we are so that we can understand ourselves and live transparently, instead of behind a mask? This is not easy. A multitude of studies reveal that “normal” people are quite self-deceived and, consequently, are also wearing a mask, hiding from themselves and the world. Of what  does the mask consist? An inflated self-esteem to shield us!

However, some psychologists claim that a little self-deception is a good thing. It gives us the confidence to shoot high and to pursue our goals. Other pundits add that once we begin to achieve our goals, we can begin to lay aside our mask and to be ourselves.

However, others observe that we are insatiable and never arrive at a place of contentment and peace. For example, the richest man in the world in his day, John D. Rockefeller, was asked, “How much more money will you need to be happy?” His answer was very revealing: “Always a little bit more.”

Other commentators claim that our ego is the culprit. If we’d learn to control the demands of our ego, we’d find peace-of-mind. However, this is like saying, “Our mind is the problem, and we just need to be able to turn it off.” But perhaps we experience our ego and mind in a negative way because they are being negatively impacted by something deeper. Perhaps they are in overdrive—obsession mode—because there is a deeper problem, which hasn’t been resolved.

We are, in essence, moral beings. We need to feel that we are significant, valuable, morally worthy, and deserving. However, on the deepest level, we know that we aren’t. Therefore, we will even do desperate things so that we can prove our worthiness. In The Significant Life, attorney George M. Weaver argues that our quest for self-importance governs our lives. He documents this quest in many ways:

·       Salvador Dali once said, “The thought of not being recognized [is] unbearable”…Lady Gaga sings, “I live for the applause, applause, applause…the way that you cheer and scream for me.” She adds in another song, “yes we live for the Fame, Doin’ it for the Fame, Cuz we wanna live the life of the rich and famous.” (7)

The quest for fame and significance can be as demanding and life-controlling as our quest for food. It can take many forms. For Lady Gaga, it takes the form mass adoration. However, the quest for adoration never seems to produce contentment.

Comedian Al Jolson had achieved fame, but it was never enough to insulate him from jealousy:

·       According to his biographer, “He once had a team of performing elephants fired because he thought the audience liked them too much.” (59)

However, this quest to feel good about ourselves takes more sinister forms. John David Chapman had gunned down his ideal, John Lennon, so that he could feel that, at last, he would be a “somebody.”

This suggests that, deep down, we feel bad about ourselves and are not a “somebody.” We have an unshakable sense that something is wrong with us. As a result, we try to convince ourselves that we are worthy by virtue of our accomplishments, whether academic, monetary, or in terms of beauty, social approval, or respect. Consequently, when we fail or are rejected, criticized, or disrespected, it feels as if we are naked and vulnerable, and we no longer feel worthy. We then seek to rebuild our self-esteem and feelings of worthiness.

What makes us feel unworthy, and what are we trying to cover over with our masks? I’d like to suggest something that most will find highly offensive. We are trying to defend ourselves against the truth. Not only are we alienated from ourselves, we are also alienated from the One who created us. We have lived in violation of our own moral standards imprinted within, but we are also living in violation of the One who has imprinted these standards. To make matters worse, we know this but cannot stand to face our moral failures. Therefore, we try to mask over this knowledge. As a result, we have become lovers of the lie and the mask, as Jesus had taught:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

Consequently, the last thing we want is exposure. What is the answer? We need to make peace with what we have suppressed, but how? Through the love, forgiveness, and reconciliation with the One we have long rejected, the One who had died as payment for our sins. Don’t think that you can achieve self-acceptance and psychological integration through mental exercises of self-forgiveness or self-acceptance. No – the suppressed material is simply too threatening to face. It tells us that we deserve condemnation!

To know His love and acceptance enables us to accept ourselves, with all of our failings, to discard the mask, and to be free from the dominating opinions of others. This is what the love of Jesus is doing for me.

SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-DECEIT, SELF-ACCEPTANCE, AND FREEDOM

Interestingly, when people are asked if they are a good person, 95-98% answer affirmatively. But by what standard have they come to this assessment? We have objective standards and measures to determine our height, but what do we have to measure our goodness? It seems that we have merely deceived ourselves into believing in our surpassing moral superiority, as many parallel studies indicate:

·       In one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, “when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.”

·       25% of college students placed themselves in the top 1%, relative to their ability to get along with others.

·       84% of Medical Residents thought that Doctors influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but only 15% of the respondents thought that they would be so influenced.

·       Psychologist Shelley Taylor writes, “Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” (Positive Illusions, p.214)

However, if and when depressed people recover, they become just as self-deluded as the “normal,” according to Taylor. We don’t suffer from a low self-esteem but an inflated self-esteem.  While we universally struggle with feelings of guilt, shame, inferiority, or just gnawing self-doubts, we tend to compensate for these painful feelings with self-aggrandizement, but why?

However, the more we inflate ourselves, the more we need to justify our inflated esteem against the assault of our feelings, and the more scaffolding we need to maintain our façade that we are significant and worthy of love and respect.

But wouldn’t it be easier to just accept and present ourselves as we really are and to admit our crying and insatiable need for success, validation, and love? Instead, it is a burden to carry around our weighty façade wherever we go and to incessantly have to prove ourselves! We crave freedom, but we have imprisoned ourselves with our own unseen shackles – a ball and chain heavier than any made of iron.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we place weights upon our back that we cannot bear? It is not just a matter of proving ourselves to the world; before all else, we need to prove ourselves to ourselves so that we can accept and feel good ourselves. However, this self is not really who we are. It is a falsely constructed self as demanding as a corpse that always needs to be refreshed.

We are told to love ourselves, but we longer even know the self that we want to love. Besides, there are constant emissions from our conscience, like gases from a septic tank, which contradict the image we have created. This means the we are in a continual and tiring struggle with ourselves to suppress the truth.

What then is the answer? Many have become workaholics, addicted to the hope that enough accomplishments will neutralize the stench. President Lyndon B. Johnson obsessively built monuments to his “success”:

• According to one commentator, “It is a curious footnote to history that long before he ran into trouble, Johnson had turned central Texas into a living monument to his heritage and his journey to the summit (the L.B.J birthplace, the L.B.J. boyhood home, the L.B.J. state park, the L.B.J. ranch and more).” (George Weaver, “The Significant Life,”  22)

The Doors’ Jim Morrison faced this struggle for freedom in a different way. His conscience wouldn’t be silenced by self-denial, money or success. Instead, he believed that his conscience had to be saturated and cleansed by self-indulgence until it was wiped clean. He was convinced that this would result in freedom and spiritual purification:

·       “Sensuousness and evil is an attractive image to us now…It’s like a purification ritual in the alchemical sense. First you have to have the period of disorder, chaos, returning to a primeval disaster religion. Out of that you purify the elements and find the new seed of life.” (Quoted from “Hungry for Heaven,” Steve Turner, 96)

Instead of freedom, death claimed him.

If servitude is the incessant need to maintain our front or image, freedom is not having to. It is the freedom to simply accept ourselves as we are, warts and all, and not have to worry about what people might think! But how? Don’t the dreadful feelings and psychological demands that percolate up from the unseen deep need to be addressed?

They must, but they can’t be covered over! The remedy has to penetrate to the very source of the infection. I would now like to suggest a remedy that will directly address the infection. However, we first have to understand our ailment before we can address it appropriately. It is called “sin.” It is both an affront to our nature and conscience and also to the One who has given us our conscience.

Our conscience is a fire alarm. It tells us of a moral problem that has to be addressed. It serves us like our pain receptors that alert us that we must remove our hand from a hot stove. However, in the case of the conscience, we do not appropriately react to its alarm. Instead, we usually tell ourselves that we have done the right thing and, therefore, do not need to apologize. It is like refusing to remove our hand from the burner, insisting that we have placed it just where we want it to be.

We stubbornly refuse to acknowledge our guilt, and it becomes a life controlling infection that putrefies everything else:

·       All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. (Proverbs 16:2)

The Lord “weighs” us by allowing us to reap what we’ve sown. Consequently, we have to make peace with our Creator by acknowledging our sin and asking for His remedy. However, coming to the Lord is like a mouse coming to the cat. Jesus explained it like this:

·       And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

The judgment is this – we condemn ourselves to the darkness of the cave. I had been a cave dweller, feeding upon endless self-delusions of grandeur. It was only the love of God that had coaxed me out of the cave and into the once painful light of the truth about myself.

I now bask in the light of the forgiveness of Christ and the eternal assurances of his love. It is this love that has enabled me to be transparent and to even laugh at myself:

·       If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

This is freedom.