Deceit

  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  

John 8:31-32    

“Thou shalt not tell a lie” is not what the command says.  It actually says that we are not to bear false witness against our neighbors.  That would be lying about them so we have apparently taken a little liberty with that command over time.  

Without getting into an argument about that command, what I want to look is that God is concerned about truth.  He is a God of abundant truth (Exodus 34:6, Psalm 31:5).  According to the scripture His truth preserves us (Psalm 40:11), He delights when there is truth in us (Psalm 51:6), His Truth endures forever (Psalm 119:160), and he will be near any who call on Him in truth (Psalm 145:18).  The list of verses that speak of the value of truth from God in our lives is very long.   

Most Christians are well aware that they are not to lie.  We know that we are to love the truth and  live accordingly.  What is somewhat alarming though, is just how shallow our thinking about truth and lies is.  We are quick to spot the false statement or the deceit in someone else’s speech or life but we are very slow at seeing how we also deceive without thinking about how God might see it as a breach of the truth.  

I am thinking of the situations where we want someone else to think something of us that just isn’t true.  We want the appearance of being successful so we run up the charges on the credit card.  We think it will look bad if people know that we don’t really know our Bibles so we stay  out of studies and Sunday School classes where that truth might become known.  We are afraid that if people knew how bad our marriage was they wouldn’t want us in leadership positions or if they knew how we treated our own children they wouldn’t want theirs to come and play.  The ways we manage to deceive are as long as the list of things we want to cover up!  

Satan loves the dark and lies and deceit are rarely exposed to the light.  When we live these lies for others, making a false impression of the real truth, Satan will use it to keep us in bondage to whatever the issue, usually including sin, so that we are useless in the Kingdom of God.  This often includes subsequent generations if we fail to reveal the problem to the Light and let the Lord show us the way out.  

In our current economy it is very difficult for people to live according to their means.  Many have lost jobs or taken a pay cut and the lifestyle that they were able to support has needed to be reduced – sometimes drastically.  Somehow, many seem to think that they “deserve” that old lifestyle and it takes them a long time to adjust the spending down.  This makes the debt deeper and the deception more difficult to hide.  

This is also true in the unstable marriage.  So often in the church, we do not think anyone should know we have a marital problem, no matter how simple or how complicated.  The truth is that everyone does not need to know.  But, if the two partners cannot work it out they need to seek godly counsel.  When we hide behind a “perfect Christian marriage” façade, the problems grow deeper and deeper until one is ready to throw in the towel – or throw out the other!  Reconciliation is very difficult when the problem is twenty years old and denied, even in the home.  There are serious consequences for the couple, their children, and the Church of Jesus Christ when a marriage, the picture of Christ’s love for the church (Ephesians 5:25), ends in divorce because no one was willing to reveal, and deal with, the truth.  

I am not one of those people who think it is wrong to leave the problems of home at home so we can go into work or church and do whatever needs to be done.  As I said, just because I am miserable now and then does not mean I have to make everyone around me miserable.  But, the Lord has clearly commanded us that we are to love one another, serve one another, and bear one another’s burdens.  If we are living deceitfully we cannot blame the church because they have not seen the whole truth and intervened in our lives to help correct the problem.  If they do not know what is happening in our homes, financially, martially, or in the discipline of the children, it is because we have not told them the truth, the whole truth.  

There is only way to be free of living a lie.  According to Hebrews 4:12, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  If those intents and thought s are deceitful we need to go back to the Word of God.  Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31b-32).  The truth is that God wants us to live in freedom that is foreign to hiding the truth.  

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16