Cloud of Witnesses Radio

Ordained Christian Deacon Warns About Self-Deception | An Honest Look at Our Need for Humility

Cloud of Witnesses cast and crew

Christian community is the antidote to self-deception.

• orthodoxy as structure that resists delusion
• self-justification versus truth-telling in love
• humility in fraternal correction without judgment
• gratitude and compassion when others fall
• response to “just me and Jesus” objections
• unity, sacraments, and commandments as lifelines
• returning after failure and rising “from glory to glory”
• church as hospital and mission to make earth heavenly

What if anger is less about others and more about the truths we’re afraid to face? We dive into a candid, compassionate conversation about reality, responsibility, and why community is the antidote to self-deception. Alongside Deacon Anthony, our Cloud of Witnesses hosts Jeremy Jeremiah, Mario Andrew, and John, explore how Orthodoxy offers an objective frame that keeps us grounded, helping us see ourselves honestly while learning to correct others with humility and love.

We challenge the reflex to justify our own faults and over-accuse others, reframing fraternal correction as an act of care: approach with facts, confess your weakness, ask to understand, and only move if love leads. That posture opens the door to genuine reconciliation and restores people to the life of the Church. We also take on the familiar “it’s just me and Jesus” stance, unpacking why isolation breeds delusion and how unity, the sacraments, and the commandments are not legalism but the concrete path Christ gave for life in Him.

The conversation turns deeply personal: what keeps us coming back after failure? We talk about the inexhaustible nature of grace—rising “from glory to glory”—and the tangible peace found in worship that we’re meant to carry into the world. The Church is a hospital for the soul: we receive healing, then we’re sent to make the earth more like heaven through daily acts of mercy, courage, and truth. If you’ve wrestled with anger, pride, or the temptation to go it alone, this story-driven exchange offers a clear, warm invitation to reality, humility, and unity.

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SPEAKER_02:

By which you can know where are you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Because you're right, because otherwise, without that, you're in delusion. Part of love is to justify. But justifying the truth. So don't give excuses to yourself. You're angry. You're angry at yourself. You're not angry at anyone else. You're angry because you see yourself exposed to the truth and to the reality.

SPEAKER_02:

I thank you for being here. Don't forget to click that subscribe button. Please give us a thumbs up if you do enjoy this content. And click that bell. You'll get notifications of all of our new content immediately. A lot coming your way. And please prayfully consider becoming one of our Patreons. You'll get exclusive access to uncut, unedited, complete episodes, as well as early access to all of our content. Thank you so much, and we hope you enjoy the rest of this video. Clarify for me that orthodoxy brings an objectivity, it brings a structure by which you can know where or not, where are you? Yeah. Because you're right, because otherwise, without that, you're in delusion.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's kind of just make it up as you go. Yeah, it's just like I feel I'm good. And unfortunately, we all outside of the church, and and as again, you go, I I watch uh police cases, crime cases, and there is so many, there is so many pain and agony in this world because of this disconnect of reality of who we are. And then you find someone who murders, or there is a guy, like I was looking at the report, and he he did uh he killed someone, and then he's like, Oh, I I I know I killed him and it's bad, but I am good. I did not mean it, or even though he meant it, or he did something bad to me. And again, the justification, the justification, because we love ourselves so much, we always justify. And always I I tell people uh if someone uh like did something wrong, if if, for example, your son did something wrong, you will say, Oh, you know, he's good, but you know, he just did that, he did not meet it. If someone's else'son did the same thing, you will find the list of accusations that go into him. And part of love is to justify, but justify in the truth. So don't give excuses to yourself, try to give excuses to your brother, but in the end of the day, if you love him, you go and talk to him in truth and not in a judgmental way. You go, you approach and you say, Uh, I see this happened. I saw you going to whatever, a bar or something bad. I'm not saying that you did this or not. I don't know. But this is what I've seen, and I am a sinner. I am bad. And help me to see what happened. So you're not assuming the worst of your brother, you're not doing it to make him look bad, you're doing it out of love because you're literally concerned. And if you're not concerned and doing it out of love, don't even go or ask. Because then you're hurting yourself and you're becoming prideful. You should be ashamed and you put your eyes to the ground if you're asking someone if something was wrong. This is the attitude, this is the humility. And when they see that, they will love you, and they will see that your love is genuine and not coming out of a pride and like I caught you doing blah blah blah. They say we are no better than anyone. And you think of yourself. If if you hear someone did something wrong, you you always call, you say, Oh God, have mercy on me, Christ help me. Because if my brother, who is better than me, did this, what I would do if the same temptation came to me. And I'm sure I will be worse. And then what you're doing here, you're you're recognizing reality, by the way. Because when you say, Oh, look what he did, this can never happen to me. Then you're just a prideful. And maybe, by the way, maybe he had temptations. If you even have tenth of it, you will do worse, actually. You'll not be like even him. But you thank God that God did not allow this temptation to happen to you. But he allowed it to your brother, and you go and you help him to carry his cross with him and bring him reconciled with the church and bring him back. And that's what you should be worried about, not about anything else.

SPEAKER_02:

I think I I need to ask you this. Because I had a conversation like this just last night. People will want to say, based on what you just said, which is Deacon Anthony, you know, the Orthodox have all these rules and all these the legalistic legalistic, and you do all that. But for me, all I know is I believe in Jesus as my savior, and I know that I'm a wretched sinner, and that's all I need. I'm complete in Christ, I'm whole in Christ. So you guys can go and do your check in your boxes, your rituals, your practice, exactly. Your traditions. What would your response be?

SPEAKER_01:

So if you want to believe that it is between you and God, you can. We can believe again, anyone can believe anything that they want, but that's not in truth. And you cannot see the truth by yourself because our mind is blinded most of the time. We always see and give excuses to ourselves. So I tell you with all the love, bring yourself to unity. Because those people usually will be away from community because they don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear what's wrong with them. But they say we're wrong, but then the first one, it's like I say I am a sinner, I am a sinner, I am a sinner, and then when you meet him, and then he does not tip fifteen dollars instead of twenty-five, you tell him why you're cheap, and he explodes and he's so mad, and he's screaming, I'm not this, I'm not that. Why you're angry? You're angry at yourself. You're not angry at anyone else. You're angry because you see yourself exposed to the truth and to the reality, and you're yelling with the whole your voice so no one will discover the secret, but everyone around you know it. So bring yourself to Christ, bring yourself to unity, because if you really want to do, and there is will you really want to do what Christ said, Christ said live in unity with the church. Christ said, This is my blood, this is my body. Take it. Christ, there is there will be no life in you. If you want me to be in you and you will be in me, you have to be part of the blood and body of Jesus Christ. Christ said, If you want, if you love me, follow my commandments.

SPEAKER_02:

John, I want to ask uh uh personal question, practical question, maybe not personal, but practical. Um because I I'm right there with you. We were talking as we were eating uh a little earlier, and you said something like, you know, kind of like I'm so bad at it, it's so hard, right? And I I want to say exactly the same thing. It is difficult, and I failed constantly. And what I want to ask you is, is as an Orthodox Christian, what keeps you coming back? When you fall, why do you get up? When times are hard, what brings you back?

SPEAKER_00:

No matter how many times I go, and no matter how many times I uh I partake of Holy Communion and you know partake of the mysteries of the church, um, I can't experience all of it. It's infinite, it's infinity, right? God is infinite. Um, and there's no there there there is that sense of heavenly satiety, like I uh my appetite is uh non-existent, right? But it's it's it's also one of those things where it's like because it's it's the kingdom of heaven, it's infinite, right? So um, and that's one of the things I hear, you know, correct me if I'm wrong theologically, but that's one of the things I hear about what heaven will be, is like it's this ever growing kind of you know, you're you're always kind of rising.

SPEAKER_02:

Um from glory to glory, right?

SPEAKER_00:

From glory to glory, exactly. Um so to me, because you know, uh the priest says, you know, blessed is the kingdom, right? We're on we're the kingdom is here, um, that's what keeps me coming back. I of course I'm always tempted, you know, to to to live in a more worldly way, and oftentimes I do. I'm not saying this to, you know, piety signal or whatever, because I'm not I'm not a terribly pious Orthodox Christian. Um but I do I do think that um you know it ties in with their conversation before, the physical has to do with it too. And um, there's a great sense of peace I feel in church that I don't feel literally anywhere else. Wow. Um, of course, the whole point is not to idolize that, the point is to take that peace with you and give it to the world, give it to the people around you. So um I think some people have, and I I actually used to think this way of like, what if I just lived in the church? Like, what if I just slept on one of the pews? Like the thing took us. Right. Yeah, yeah. Um, what if I just live there? It's like, no, no, that's not really the point. You know, of course the point is to come, but the point is to to take what you literally what you get in terms of the gifts. To run away from the world. Exactly. It's to, it's to, you know, it's in the it's in our father, you know, it's in the our father prayer, you know, on earth as it is in heaven. We have to make the earth heavenly, right? And we have to be perfect as you know, our father in heaven is perfect, and that's that's a tremendous thing. That's it, that's an uh, I'd say um it's an unbelievable thing, but it's it's what we're called to do. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

So I love how you put that. I mean, the church is the hospital of the soul.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02:

And we also don't necessarily want to live in a hospital, right? We're not called to live in the hospital. We are to get healing, to be, you know, strengthened, to be renewed, but yet we need to go back out. Look at that. You made it to the end. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget, please like, subscribe, ring that bell if you want to keep up to date with all that we have coming your way. Really grateful to Deacon Anthony for spending some time with Cloud of Witnesses. Remember, right now, over at our Patreon, the entire uncut clip is available for you. Go check us out over there at Cloud of Witnesses. God bless you. We hope you were edified, and we will see you on the next one. Bye bye.