UNBELIEF IS EVIL IN DISGUISE

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¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. – Hebrews 3:12 – 13 NIV

Each one of us is responsible for being alert and making sure that we do not welcome or entertain thoughts of doubt towards God and His Word, the Holy Spirit within us is our Helper, accept His help as He points out areas and instances where you've entertained unbelief, make the necessary adjustments beginning in your heart, that is in your mind, get it renewed by the Word of God. The Word of God clearly states that unbelief is sin, and to harbor any unbelief in our hearts is to have an evil heart. God calls unbelief, evil – not just wrong or just simply human weakness, no, God calls unbelief evil.

In God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, we see how He dealt with them severely when they expressed unbelief towards Him. The Holy Spirit’s commentary, in the Book of Hebrews, on what caused them to wander for forty years in the desert is simply one word: UNBELIEF. Remember they had come up to the verge of crossing over into the promised land and they sent twelve spies to check out the land as part of their strategy, ten of them brought back a negative report and only two brought back a good one, you know the story (Numbers 13 - 14).

God was far from pleased with their unbelief, He showed up in His glory and this is what He said:

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? – Numbers 14:11 NIV

The thing is, God had already promised them repeatedly – all the way back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the whole nation as well – that He would bring them to the promised land and here they were right on the verge of it, now instead of trusting God to complete what He had begun with them, they chose to believe the negative report brought by the ten spies. This sin of unbelief cost the nation forty years of wandering in the desert, it cost the bearers of the negative report their lives.

An entire generation, save for Joshua and Caleb, perished in the wilderness simply because they chose to believe the negative report over God’s promise to them. Whenever we choose to believe what we can perceive with our five senses over the Word of God, we are essentially treating God with contempt; we are insinuating that He is a liar and therefore not trustworthy. That is why God calls unbelief “evil” and “wicked”. You see, unbelief has a way of drawing you away from God, thus effectively sending you down the path of sin with all its deceitfulness, the end of which is destruction.  

Unbelief limits what God can do in, for and through us and since anything that is not of faith is sin, it follows that unbelief is sin and sin is deceitful, it hardens our hearts towards God and causes us much grief in the end. Remember even Jesus was limited by the unbelief He saw in his hometown of Nazareth and consequently He couldn't, notice He couldn't NOT wouldn't do any mighty works there.

⁵ Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. ⁶ And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching – Mark 6:5 NKJV

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Think about it, ultimately, unbelief is the only sin that will keep people from entering Heaven; when one refuses to believe in Jesus Christ and what He did to reconcile us to God, as one rejects Him as The Only Way to Heaven, they cannot receive His salvation and are doomed to horrendous eternity in hell. You will do well to put your faith in Jesus today, that is, if you haven’t already.  

Be encouraged beloved, let faith arise in your heart as you keep on reading, hearing and meditating on God’s Word. Don’t give in to unbelief, remember in every situation you face today, your Daddy has the last Word, and that’s all that matters.