Thursday; November 12

The Bible is pretty pointed about its approach to lying – we shouldn’t do it. Telling untruths are prohibited throughout the Scriptures including, “Do not lie to one another, since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created it …” (Colossians 3:9-10). Now, we could stop right there and make the point that lying is wrong, but have you ever thought about why lying is such a problem? Why is it wrong to tell falsehoods? Let’s take a look a few other reasons why we should avoid lies:

1. Lying puts our will ahead of others. Why do we lie? The answer is simple, because we want to get ahead. We want something that we are not naturally entitled to, so we position ourselves in a better light. This is wrong because Christians are supposed to put others first. When we lie, not only do we promote our own cause, we unjustly put ourselves out front.
2. Lying skews the truth. Now this may seem like a repetition of the general concept of lying, but it goes deeper than that. When we lie, we assert false data which, if others rely on, produces false results. People often base decisions on our word, so when they accept our lies as truth, their decisions are going to be flawed.
3. Lying shows our true colors. The Bible make the statement that it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18) and calls satan the father of lies (John 8:44), so by lying we show whose camp we are in. We cannot proclaim allegiance to God when we lie, rather we show that we are children of satan.
Lying may not seem to be a big thing, but when we do it, we impact not only our eternity but put others at a disadvantage. Let’s tell the truth. It may not get us everything we want, but we’ll never have to apologize or ask forgiveness for doing it.

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