Pastor Mac taught the wrap-up to his series entitled, “Strategies of Deceit,” with the subtitle being “Reprobate Faith.” A deadly strategy of deception, reprobate faith is something the enemy will use to bring the greatest possible deception to bear in your life. “What is the greatest deception?” you ask. It is believing you are in faith when, in fact, you are not!

Dive Deeper

This message was the wrap-up message to the series, “Strategies of Deceit,” with the subtitle being “Reprobate Faith.”

 

Reprobate faith is not something you are to cultivate. Rather, it’s something you need to learn to identify if it occurs in your life. Reprobate faith is something the enemy will use to bring the greatest possible deception to bear in your life.

 

What is the greatest deception? It is believing you are in faith when, in fact, you are not.

 

If the faith you think you have isn’t really the God kind of faith, then the enemy doesn’t have to do much else because you’re not going to experience the fullness that true faith can bring.

 

Faith is important. The Bible makes it clear our lives are going to be determined by what we believe.

 

The things you believe are going to be the most beneficial for you will be the things you choose to embrace. This is normal for everyone. That is part of our approach to life as humans.

 

But God makes it clear that not everything you might want to do is a good thing for you. He says in His Word that He has placed before us the choice to make decisions for life and blessing or death and cursing. The most important thing to understand is that the choice is yours.

 

Your life will be a culmination of all the choices you’ve made. Even though it’s His will that your life would be filled with life and blessing, He will not impose His will upon you.

 

If your choices are not based on the truth of God’s Word, your decisions will result in death and cursing.

 

This is the way God made us. We are free moral agents. We get to choose our own destinies. You will literally make dozens of choices each and every day that will lead to either life and blessing or death and cursing.

 

Of course, no one is going to choose death and cursing on purpose. The only way you would make those choices is if you’re deceived. That is the strategy of the enemy… to deceive you into making decisions that are not based on the Word of God. His deception is to convince you there’s something else that’s going to be better for you than the Word of God.

 

He works hard to deceive you because it’s the only tool in his toolbox. So he cannot defeat you if he can’t deceive you. He cannot alter your destiny in God unless he can change what you believe.

 

Being that deception is the enemy’s only possible strategy against us, Pastor Mac has been using the armor of God to unveil the enemy’s strategies against us. If you are informed about how the enemy will come against you, you will be better prepared to deal with whatever he brings.

 

A piece of armor is given to deal with a certain kind of deception; that will tell us where we can be particularly vigilant.

 

Ephesians 6:11 tell us to “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

 

The word wiles is defined as “deceit.” That is what we are to stand against. His deception—the deceits that he perpetrates in your life.

 

You are not standing against the Devil like you got to overcome him with your great spiritual strength. You just have to stand against the deception that he’s going to initiate. That is what the armor of God is designed for.

 

God is a creator. We have been made in His image. That means you are a creator as well. You create the day you step into tomorrow by the decisions you make today. You create the life that you have.

 

What is our creative capacity resident within? 1st Peter 1:13 says, “Gird up the loins of your mind.” And the word for mind in that verse is “imagination.” Even though it’s translated mind in English, it means imagination.

 

Imagination sees a future probability. Our imagination or ability to perceive future probability is where our creative capacity resides.

 

What is your present reality in terms of your expectation of future probability? Do you see yourself like God says you are?

 

God has a plan for you, a high purpose for your life. And as you can begin to see these things as elements of your future, that’s where your life will go.

 

We’re talking today about “reprobate faith.” Somebody asked, “Why don’t you just preach on faith? Why preach on the wrong kind of faith… reprobate faith.”

 

Yes, we want to know who He is, but sometimes the best way to really grasp who God is, is to know who He is not. And He says a lot of things in the Word of God about who He is not.

Read About It

Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

 

1st Peter 1:13, which says, “Gird up the loins of your mind.”