March 31, 2024

In People of the Lie, Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, M.D., wrote evil people suffer from an extreme form of “self-protectiveness…Their “goodness” is all on the level of pretense. It is a lie…this is why they are “people of the lie.” They lie not to deceive others but to deceive themselves regarding their own goodness. They are self-justifying, “unable to tolerate the pain of self-reproach…the pain of their own conscience, the realization of their own sinfulness.”

After a lifetime of research and clinical observations, Dr. Peck concluded, “the essential component of evil is not the absence…but the unwillingness to tolerate that sense of sin. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.”

Today in America, evil is often defined politically, but that is not how the Bible defines evil. In the Bible sin is any transgression of the moral law of God by thought, word or deed…even by act of omission.

Martin Luther King said, “Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God. Bound by the chains of his own sin, man needs a Savior.”

The prophet Isaiah foretold of a divine exchange when the “Righteous One” would come to take the place of the unrighteous and by His wounds we would be healed.

At Easter, Christians remember that God does not forgive sin, He can’t. God forgives sinners.

Easter is the day when “mercy triumphs over judgement.”

The Bible says: “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven…against whom there is no iniquity.”

That is the good news that I celebrate today!

Happy Easter.

Thanks for traveling with us.