Simplicity

Simplicity, as pointed out to me recently by Bro. Ed Bragwell, is the opposite of duplicity.  Yet again, Hal slaps himself in the face and wonders how something so obviously true and practical escaped his notice for 52 years.

“The simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” is addressed in 2 Corinthians 11:3.  Our Christian service in this context is not “simplistic” in that it is insultingly basic, or even “simple” in that it is easy to understand (although it is simple, after a fashion).  No, Paul’s point is that it is directed.  It is focused.  It does not waver from vision to vision, objective to objective.

A duplicitous person cannot be trusted.  He has one agenda in public, another in private.  He promotes the good of others, but secretly he seeks only his own.  Jesus is not duplicitous.  He unceasingly, unwaveringly, unhesitatingly points in a single direction: the will of His Father in heaven (John 5:19).  Naturally we as His followers have the same attitude.  We are ever, always, and determinedly in pursuit of His will for our lives — “trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10).

It’s simple.  Whatever in our lives that pursues “His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33), we amplify.  Whatever in our lives that indulges and feeds “the deeds of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21), we try to eliminate.  The one who tries to do both is the worst kind of duplicitous — the one who has deluded himself.