When "Thou Shalt Not Lie" Gets Complicated..

Leviticus 13:9 says "Thou Shalt Not Lie." It's one of the easiest commandments to remember, right? "Easy enough!" We tell ourselves, we don't lie to people, and we ask for forgiveness on the rare occasions we mess up, so we can move on to the other 9 commandments, right? Maybe not. It seems that more often than not, we exclude ourselves from that list of people that we don’t lie to. There are three types of lies that we tell ourselves, (or at the very least come into agreement with) that constantly sabotage and diminish the quality of our lives. So, let's talk about that...

1 - The Lies We Believe About God

It's easy to say we don't lie to others, but the first time mankind ever fell short or stumbled it wasn't because of a lie they told, it was because of a lie they came into agreement with about God. We believe God is the most powerful being in the universe, sure, but His word also promises...

• His love never runs out (Isaiah 54:10)
• He will never leave you (Deuteronomy 31:8)
• He is working for your good (Romans 8:28)
• He will provide for you (Philippians 4:19)
• He hears you (Proverbs 15:29)
• He cares about you, and every thing you are anxious about (1 Peter 5:7)

Among many, many, other promises. Yet, how often do we find ourselves believing that THIS time we've gone beyond the reach of what He can forgive? THIS time we've screwed things up beyond what He can fix. THIS time He is done with us.. Or there's no WAY He ACTUALLY cares, my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling and coming back to me..Suddenly it becomes clear we lie to ourselves more than we thought. God's word is TRUE, and we have to replace those lies with that truth. When we begin to tell ourselves lies about God, we have to remind ourselves of these truths. He loves you, and He is good.

2 - The Lies We Believe About Ourselves

"Okay, you got me there.. But that's the extent of my lying.." Is it? How often do we make ONE mistake and immediately launch into a string of lies about ourselves? "I'm so stupid." "I screw everything up." "I'm worthless." "I can't do it." Do those narratives agree with what God says about us? His word says we are created in His image, does a stupid worthless screwup sound like the image of God? We all make mistakes, we all fail, we all struggle, but our mistakes don't define us. Don't let momentary struggles in your life cause you to believe permanent lies about yourself. You would never speak to a friend or someone you care about the way you speak to yourself, so start treating yourself like someone you care about and STOP believing lies that go against who God says you are.

3 - The Lies We Believe About Others

This one? This one hurts, because when we address this, we don't just have to change how we think, we have to change how we act. It's much easier to get an attitude with our significant other or someone in traffic when we just operate off of the easiest assumptions we can make. "She's so SELFISH, she doesn't care about me at all, I'm going to tell her EXACTLY what I think." Meanwhile she's been drowning in work or with the kids all day and completely forgot about what you asked her to do, has already remembered, and feels terrible.. Or maybe its easier to believe that guy that cut you off in traffic is just a jerk with no redeemable qualities, rather than a guy who just had a baby, hasn't slept in two months, and if he's late to work one more time he's going to lose his job.. It's much easier to believe lies about other people because doing so means we don't have to show grace, right? They're irredeemable nincompoops, completely unlike us! Or maybe, they're just like us, trying in their own way and fighting desperately in their own struggles.. Maybe they need grace just as much as we do, and maybe we need to stop telling ourselves lies that make it easier to ignore God's command to love one another, no matter how difficult that is.

My prayer is that this week, we could catch ourselves in the act of telling or believing these lies, and stop ourselves. That we would believe God is who He says He is, and that we, and the people around us, are made in His image and could all use a little more grace and kindness. If you'd like to explore these topics more in depth, I highly recommend checking out Crash The Chatterbox by Steven Furtick, as well as The Truth About Lies and Lies About The Truth by David Takle.

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