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This article is called, “the God of your own imagination-deception..” To many will accept the god they want and prefer. This god will be everything they want and need, and this god will take his or her orders from you. Simply put this is the god of my own making and is the god I will rule and accept. Mankind has now made god in his or her image. We already know there have been thousands of gods in cultures and civilizations all through history but mankind has this great want and need to make his own god in his own image. 

In our world, your preference of God and Jesus, rules supreme. NOT GOD OR HIS WORD. Let’s see what Jesus himself warned us about. Matthew 24:24-25 “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; in so much that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 25 Behold, I have told you before.” Jesus was right on target and warned us who and what to look out for. There are hundreds of new so called Bibles that have been written. AND 99% HAVE BEEN REVISED AND RE-WRITTEN, TO SATISFY HIS OWN PERSONAL COMFORT AND BELIEF. 

People do not hold to the standard, or authority of God’s Word and Truth. Man sets his own, while totally ignoring Gods. “STOP BELIEVING LIES ABOUT THINGS, THAT JESUS NEVER SAID, or did.”

RELIGIOUS DECEPTION

Dear Reader, I believe religious deception is a major tool that Satan uses to lead people away from God,Salvation and all that God offers for now and all eternity. We are already living in the day of “SIGNS AND WONDER WORKERS,” who fakes and scammers who can produce something fake and declare the power of God, deceivers. Satan loves to convince everyone in the world how they have become their own personal “god” with all power and authority over their own life. Just look around world wide and you will see the religious deception. 

As got questions .com says, START QUOTE. “We live in a world full of lies, and deceit comes from many sources. There are lying spirits who lead astray (1 Timothy 4:1); there are “evildoers and impostors” looking for dupes (2 Timothy 3:13); and, perhaps most insidious, we have ourselves to deal with. Self-deception is common in our fallen world.

Our own hearts are deceitful—so much so that we easily fool ourselves (Jeremiah 17:9). Isaiah 44:20 speaks of an idolater who is misled by his own “deluded heart.” The prophet Obadiah identifies arrogance as one of the roots of self-deception: “The pride of your heart has deceived you” (Obadiah 1:3). Human pride always blinds us to truth. It promises honor, but it delivers disgrace: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

James 1:22 warns us against deceiving ourselves: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” The self-deception that James has in mind relates to an inappropriate response to truth. God’s Word is meant to change us (see Psalm 119:11 and John 17:17). We can sit in church for years, listening to sermon after sermon, but if we never allow the Word we hear preached change us, then we are self-deceived. We can read the Bible from cover to cover, but unless we put it’s commands into practice, we deceive ourselves.

Such deception is common among religious people who accumulate truth in their minds, assuming that this is what “true religion” is all about. But Scripture was not given merely to produce theologians; it was given “so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). Holding the truth in one’s mind is not necessarily a character-changing quality. James 1:23–24 illustrates: merely looking at oneself in a mirror is not necessarily an appearance-changing experience. The mirror can tell us our hair is a mess, but unless we get out the brush and attack the problem, the tangles will remain.

James goes on to contrast self-deceived, “worthless” religion with “pure and faultless” religion, giving a practical example of each. One type of self-deception is to believe that our words do not matter: “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless” (James 1:26). In contrast, those who successfully avoid being self-deceived practice true religion: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (verse 27). Empty religion allows a person to employ his bodily members and his material resources toward self-centered objectives. But God approves of “faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6).

Self-deception is illustrated tragically by Samson. This mighty hero of Israel disclosed the secret of his strength to Delilah, who betrayed him to his enemies as he slept. Once his hair had been cut, Delilah called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” Samson “awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20). Samson learned the hard way that forgetting the Word of God is a form of self-deception.

The bravado of the giant Goliath is another example of self-deception. He strutted and boasted and flung insults at Israel, sure that his great size and physical strength would ensure victory against the much smaller and weaker David. But he was wrong; in fact, Goliath didn’t even know what battle he was fighting. His fight was not with David, but with David’s God (1 Samuel 17:41–51).

Self-deception can also occur in relation to one’s security, as shown in Jesus’ parable of the rich fool. The man in the story was thrilled that his land produced an unusually abundant crop. He believed he’d come to a time in his life when he could “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19). But this was wishful thinking, for he would die that very night (verse 20).

The church of Laodicea was the victim of self-deception concerning their spiritual condition. This lukewarm church had convinced itself that everything was all right: “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing” (Revelation 3:17a). Jesus, who always speaks truth, set them straight: “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (verse 17b).

To avoid self-deception, we must be, like the one who “looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do” (James 1:25). Remembering the Word, doing the Word, and continuing in the Word—this is what changes character and counters self-delusion. Like a mirror, the Word of God will always show us the truth.”

CONCLUSION

Usually, when people speak of the “great deception,” they refer to 2 Thessalonians 2:11, which predicts that God will, in an end-times judgment, send “a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.” This great deception is associated with the satanic work of the Antichrist and his “displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie” (verse 9).

The same passage in 2 Thessalonians also speaks of a great apostasy that will take place before the man of lawlessness is revealed. Similar apostasies are predicted elsewhere: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). Of course, people are complicit in the deception, for they reject the truth and prefer lies: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3–4).

Jesus spoke about a time to come when the deception will be especially great when false messiahs and false prophets will appear. Even the people of God could be deceived if it were not for God’s providential protection: “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and performs great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the “elect” (Matthew 24:24, see also Mark 13:5–6, Luke 21:8).

All of these deceptions are instigated by the devil. However, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 also speaks of the deception as God’s punishment on people who refuse to believe the truth. The context seems to be similar to that of the gospel passages above and speaks of one to come who will be especially deceptive: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all will be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12, ESV).

In this passage, after people have refused the truth for so long, God causes them to believe what is false—a “strong delusion.” This is not an instance where God actively deceives people; rather, God is simply giving those who reject the truth what they really want.

We see a similar pattern in Romans 1:18–25 where people reject God’s truth for so long that He simply abandons them to their own sinfulness. They have, as it were, crossed the point of no return:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what maybe known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

“So, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

Much the same thing happened to Pharaoh after he refused to let the Israelites leave Egypt, and God hardened his heart. It was not as though Pharaoh would have been an obedient follower of the Lord if God had not hardened his heart. Pharaoh set his heart against the Lord, and God simply confirmed for all time Pharaoh’s decision (see Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34; 10:1).

The deception spoken of in the Gospels has to do with false prophets and/or messiahs who appears and seem to be authenticated by miracles. Taking the futurist position, we see the great deception spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2 as a future event associated with the coming of the Antichrist after the rapture of the church. “Those who are perishing” will willingly embrace the imitation and follow the beast of the end times; they will perish “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (verse 10).

We don’t know exactly what the great deception will be, only that it will be a strong delusion capable of swaying the world’s allegiance toward the Antichrist. The Bible says that, in the time of the Antichrist and false prophet, there will be many signs to bolster their lies. The false prophet “performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. Because of the signs it was given power and  perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth” (Revelation 13:13–14). It is hard to imagine, but the deception during the tribulation will be worse than all of Satan’s other deceptions. The Antichrist will have a deadly wound healed, and  his “image” will breathe and speak and give orders, etc. (Revelation 13:12, 15).

In the broader sense,  and at some point, God may simply abandon him to the deception that he has willingly embraced. There are plenty of false teachers today who claim to teach God’s Word. Some claim they are Christians, and some claim to bring a word from God from outside of the Bible. It is vitally important that every Christian compare every teaching with what the Bible says and spend the time necessary to determine what is being taught.” END QUOTE.

Examine your very heart, mind and soul and see what is your priorities in your life and where you stand with God. This will determine your very existence throughout all eternity. NO JOKE. Who or what is deceving your mind? Quit listening to the world and start listening to God and His Word. Quit listening to the God of your own imagination-with it’s deception. Gods Word is Truth. RAY