One of the great traps we can fall into as Christians is that of a faith that only acknowledges a truth(s) about God, because this alone does nothing to rightly change the spirit within us. Our very belief in these facts can blind us from the right purposes of God in His religion. We can wrongly understand faith to be that of believing facts, rather than of a right spirit and living being formed in us through the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

As an example, there is much debate in the world today around the creation account, as well as many other things. A believer may wrestle through some of these questions, but we can end up in a wrong focus in life in the name of these things.

This is the great warning we have in James 2:19, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” Believing right facts about God is not the fulfillment of “the faith”. True faith is what works the spirit of godliness and righteousness within us (1 Tim 1:5).

Faith is about taking hold of the core of a person. We all have seen many examples in life of people who technically don’t violate the letter of the law all while we see that the spirit and attitude in them is wrong and twisted. For example, many talk about their right to freedom of speech, and twist this to have some perverse “freedom” to say whatever evil they wish. Godly faith is about grasping this core in us and us walking in the light by this being purified.

The Lord reveals that much goes wrong in us through wrong believing. For example, when we don’t believe God to exist, nor that we are responsible towards Him, then we will not align our lives with these truths. But when faith is worked in us, we come to see these things as truth and reality, and by this, we begin to change our whole approach to life. We begin to live beneath a right fear of God, and seek out what is good in His sight. Faith is about purifying these many many parts within us—and there are a great many branches in the human heart that must be sanctified and changed.

We’d never think that “truth” can blind us from Truth, but this sort of thing happens all the time. Where we believe we are as we should be because we acknowledge right facts about God, believing this is “faith”. We fail to see what right believing must truly produce in us—the great sanctification through Jesus Christ.

Because of this error, a person can be deceived into walking out the path of facts and debate instead of walking in the path of godliness and righteousness. They take facts and debate as the purpose of God, as the meaning of “faith”, rather than God’s true purpose. Because of this they are deceived, and walk down a very wrong path in the name of faith, religion, and “standing firm in the truth”.

For example, there are many in this world who “take a stand in the truth” against evolution, “liberalism”, and so on, who cannot see they are still no better in nature and life than an unbeliever. In fact, they might actually be worse. While they are busy with their crusades they miss the entire true purpose of faith—the sanctifying of their spirit and lives (2 Cor 7:1).

How is it possible for them to be worse? Because their religion works to harden their hearts, not soften them, to make them more self confident (“the truth backs us”) rather than less, more proud rather than more humble, more deaf rather than more willing to hear, and more unreasonable rather than reasonable because they think that faith transcends reason and logic. It also makes them harsher towards their neighbor rather than better and doing true good towards them.

They do not see that this comes from a broken faith. While they are busy “defending the truth”, their faith is not doing the right work of revealing these godly convictions within. Such believing as this never works to renew the spirit of their minds (Eph 4:23).

In believing they have taken a “stand” with these facts, they believe that they have done their duty. They do not see that their ideas about faith and standing for the truth are carnal and not of the wisdom from above (James 3:15). They try to live out their religion through carnal means, failing to understand how possible this is in religion. Their very efforts in the name of defending the truth come from a carnal mind and are “weapons of the flesh”; It is earthly, and not of the wisdom that is from above (James 3:15-18). Their very efforts in religion are of the carnal nature, and have not been renewed by the Spirit of God.

The flesh loves strife and debate, loves feeling special and superior, and they fail to realize that this is what they are pursuing through their attempts at religion. That they do not allow God to convict them at this level of their hearts—perhaps they don’t know how. And so, they take on these sinful little delicacies in their pursuit of religion. And because this is the true religion of the one true God, they don’t think it is possible for them to go wrong in it.

This reveals to us that what we believe about the things of God either directs our paths to what is truly of Him, or it can deceive us. It is very important that we examine what we believe faith to be—our faith about faith.

They have believed ideas in God’s religion; and our ideas about God are this issue of faith; and our faith can be very corrupt. They fail to acknowledge the Scriptures that would contradict their wrong believing about God.

This is where we need to understand faith for what it really is. Faith is about getting at all the ways we believe within ourselves, and how these can be corrupt; and this is no less true in our approach to religion. We can approach God and have a “faith” in God that is rooted entirely in what is selfish, presumptuous, proud, unfaithful, and self-serving.

Therefore while all of this can be happening in a person’s soul, they are busy imagining they are simply believing the truth, when they fail to realize that they are interpreting the Word of God through their sinful minds, and not truly allowing the work of faith upon them.

For such a person, they actually grow worse in their sin because now they believe that they are one with the truth, that the truth is approving and blessing them. They think the truth backs them, and that they are backing the truth. Therefore, they have believed they “know the light”, so now it is 10x more difficult to get them to see the darkness still in them (Matt 6:23).

So while we talk about subjects like the attacks against the creation account, it’s just as important, if not more important in our day, to see how the devil loves to come in and deceive believers in these very places. To make Christians feel proud and self satisfied for believing certain truths about God, and deceive them away from right faith.

Many spend their whole lives on controversy and debate in place of true godliness and in doing the will of God. They believe that this controversy and debate IS godliness—and this is where the devil deceives them.

People can spend their whole lives running down this path, believing they are serving God, and miss the entire purpose of God in His religion: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Tim 1:5) They waste themselves on the very things God warns us away from, “not to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” (1 Tim 1:4) The topics and the types of debate today are different, so they don’t see how these verses are talking about them… But the point of the Lord here is that we can very easily be turned out of a right focus on godliness by devoting ourselves to debate/controversy. See also 2 Timothy 2:14-26. They are like Peter who wanted to take some stand for Christ with a sword, but was unwilling to learn how to stand for Jesus in humiliation, crucifixion, and godliness.

We miss our way when we fail to accept the simple truth that the only person who pleases God is the one who truly does the will of God. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Mt 7:21-23) God shows how people can think they serve Him and yet never have truly done the will of God.

Additionally, it is important for us to understand here the heart beneath these things; that people fall into this deception not just because they’re innocently deceived, they are deceived because of their sinful desires and a rejection of the work of righteousness. “depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (See also 2 Thess 2:10-12).

The spiritual issue here is that of refusing to love righteousness and to truly hold one’s self accountable to it. And because they have emptied their hands of this work they fill it with other things. They have also rejected the truth that they must be truly righteous in order to be accepted by God, so they do not have a right godly fear to balance them and direct them in their lives.

If such people would read the Scriptures more humbly, slowly, fully, and spiritually, they would see just how much the Scriptures warn us from such presumption. The very example of the Jewish people, especially in Christ’s day, shows us this exact same presumption. This being busy with “the religion of God” all while being a million miles away from the true Spirit of it. See Matthew 3:5-12.

So many people try to take a stand for God all while failing to understand that the true work for God is that of being cleansed ourselves. With all the noise today about the world’s sins—if we really cared about the world’s repentance then we would care 10x more about our own—for this alone is what glorifies Christ in this world.

THIS is meant to be the testimony to the world around us. God calls us to testify to the world through holiness, gentleness, respect, and true repentance in our own lives, yet many skip all of this work, settling for a pretense and acting these things, when the reality of them is not real within them. Instead, they want to testify through controversy and debate. They are entirely unworthy to preach to others. And though they talk, perhaps, about true facts of God, as to Him as the Creator, their sin within speaks continually against God, and turns people away from Him. “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” (Rom 2:23-24)

The outcome of the fruits of such living is never what people think it is. Rather than increasing godliness, it does the opposite—both in themselves and in the hearers around them. They even fail to understand that the reason many people do not believe the creation account is not because of the science, but because of the nature within people who profess to believe in God and “speak the truth”. If Christianity were true, they think, then why would it not equally speak to the issues within such people?

Sin corrupts everything around it, and this is no less true of religion. Just because God is true does not make us true. We are only as true as we labor in this right work of God.

Therefore, it is very important to understand how we can “acknowledge the Light” all while fully resisting the Light’s work within (John 3:20), and this is the nature of sin and darkness (John 3:19-20).

(This is an excerpt from the Genesis 1 commentary.)