One of the most difficult things you or I will ever face in life is admitting our own sins. That is especially true if our transgressions have been defined in specific terms. Admitting that we have hated another person is a particularly hard thing to do. The words I’m sorry are the two most difficult words to say in any language.
What if people really knew what you and I are capable of—our plans for revenge; our hatred and jealousies; our greed, intolerance, arrogance; our profane longings and lustful desires; . . . our self-idolatry? We shudder at the thought. Most of us spend a lifetime devising ways to keep such things out of sight. Social stigma is a powerful influence. But exposure in the court of God’s holy justice is more profound. The eternal future of those temple leaders might have been different had they only heeded Jesus’ words and repented.
When we are paralyzed with fear, it’s not hard to pretend that everything is just fine, even when it isn’t. Sometimes we work so hard at secreting the darkness hidden in our hearts that we are able to convince ourselves of the lie. This is called denial.
Denial is conflict driven into the nethermost places of the heart. When there, an individual mistakenly believes he or she will not have to acknowledge it. Like the decision to live with a heart that is at war, denial is a choice. One writer says it “involves active avoidance . . . a deliberate effort to refrain from even noticing [that something is wrong]. . . . It usually involves refusing to acknowledge the presence of things that beg for attention.”
Often the motivation for denial is fear. But the fear may not always be a response to our own pain. Sometimes we avoid seeing the sins of a loved one. This can become an ongoing pretense, like someone pretending not to notice the disfiguring scars on the face of the burn victim to whom he has just been introduced. Out of compassion we do our best to avoid looking directly at the disturbing sight.
But pretending not to notice can also make a relationship awkward and uncomfortable. While deception is not the intent, we go out of our way not to see something that is painfully obvious. Unless the pretense itself is acknowledged, any hope for a meaningful relationship will continue to be compromised.
When sin is part of the equation, denial is a silent faith killer. Here Satan is especially crafty, providing a tempting smorgasbord of three possible truths to deny. All three are spiritually lethal. The first option Satan places before us is to deny the truth of sin (ours or that of someone else who is dear to us). Alternately, he dangles the choice of denying Jesus’ power and authority to forgive sin. If these ploys don’t work, he tries to get us to deny the new self—that new man rooted in Christ’s love. The devil knows that the new man wants to do the right thing. He also knows that the choice to deny the new-man inclination is a choice to go to war with God . . . again.
The Pharisees’ fundamental problem was that they were living in a perpetual state of denial. Denying their own sinfulness is what launched their conflict with Jesus in the first place. When he lovingly tried to intervene, their denial led them to reject him out of hand. They did their best not to acknowledge the elephant in the room that had crowded God out of their lives. Repentance was within reach, and with it forgiveness. Jesus gave them a perfect opportunity to do some serious soul-searching. Yet because they were in full denial, the father of lies had them right where he wanted them.
Excerpt from Heart At Peace: Biblical Strategies for Christian Conflict, 2014 Northwestern Publishing House. All rights reserved.