I Lie
No one had to teach me how to lie; I was telling lies just as soon as I learned to talk. It came naturally, as you can see from this humorous example my mom recorded when I was just three:
Paula came to me today with the Desitin [diaper rash cream] and said, "This top came off." There was Desitin all over her hands, on the tube, etc. She had put it on the bottoms of two cloth clowns and put blankets over their bottoms (diapers, you know), so they were messy, too. Very hard not to laugh!
Did you catch that? I had purposefully taken and played with the Desitin. But when I realized I'd made a mess and might get in trouble, I told my mom, "The top came off." It wasn't my fault—that top had just popped off and somehow the Desitin had just spread itself on my clowns (and hands) all by itself!
Maybe you've never played with Desitin, but it sounds like you have plenty of experience with lying, too. This past Thursday you listed all kinds of reasons you lie (by the way, thanks for being honest about your lying!).
I think I can summarize the many reasons you and I lie into one simple explanation. Are you ready?
Why I Lie
You and I lie because we have deceitful hearts. (Sorry to break the news to you, but it's the truth.)
Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"
Our hearts are sin-sick. In fact, they overflow with sin. Jesus said:
"Out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person" (Mark 7:21–23).
By the way, when the Bible talks about your heart, it's not talking about that blood-pumping organ. It's referring to the "real" you—the very core of who you are.
So if we're all born with deceitful hearts, then why shouldn't we just keep "twisting the truth"? Everybody does it, right? What's the big deal?
Why I Don't Want to Lie
Marie Sumo, a reader of this blog, commented on Thursday's post that she's motivated not to lie because God hates lying:
There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers (Prov. 6:16–19).
But my question is . . . why? Why does God hate lying?
I wonder if it's because lying is directly in opposition to who He is. Check these out:
"God is not man, that he should lie" (Num. 23:19).
It is impossible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18).
God, who never lies (Titus 1:2).
"I [Jesus] am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
God cannot lie, and we are made in God's image. Our purpose is to tell and show the world the truth about this God who is Truth. When we lie, we're misrepresenting Him and acting more like His enemy:
"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44).
How I Don't Lie
So if you were designed to tell the truth, how can you stop lying?
1. You and I need to repent of our sin and put our faith in Jesus. He is both the only man who never told a single lie, and the only God who willingly gave His life so that liars like you and me might be credited as being perfect truth-tellers.
2. If we have trusted in Jesus, we need to believe the fact that our lying lips are buried in the grave with our old self. Romans 6:1–4 says that when Jesus died, our old self died, too. When Jesus was buried, our old self was buried, too. And when Jesus burst out of that sealed tomb with new resurrection life, we were raised with Him, as brand-new girls pulsating with His life.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col. 3:9–10).
3. I encourage you to make the same commitment that Nancy Leigh DeMoss (co-author of Lies Young Women Believe: And the Truth That Sets Them Free) made many years ago. She committed to "speak the truth to every person in every situation, regardless of the cost,"and, if she failed to do so, to go back to the person and make it right.
I adopted her practice a few years ago and started going back to the people I'd lied to and saying something like, "Will you forgive me? I didn't tell the truth when I said . . ." It was so embarrassing to do, but it also put a stop to those little "harmless" lies because I knew what I'd have to do to make it right.
How about it? Will you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, with the help of God?
