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Finally,
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if
anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think
about such things. Php 4:8
Truth; Truth and faithful are translated from the
same Hebrew and Greek words.
Truth is defined by Webster’s 1828 dictionary as:
Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or
has been, or shall be.
Truth is something that our culture has let slip
away. I can remember the phrase “It was just a white lie.”
Is there such a thing as a white lie? Are there degrees of
lies--maybe red being the most horrible lie and white being the small
insignificant lie? What part of truth is a white lie?
Are there different degrees of sins? From my
understanding, sin is sin, one not being greater than any other.
So is lying a sin? How about the testimonies
we give--about ourselves or about others? This is a command,
Jesus didn’t say “If it suits your needs” he said “DO NOT Lie”
I’ve just got to reflect back to the bumper sticker I’ve seen that says
“what part of not don’t you
understand”?
Read and discuss these scriptures:
Luke 18:19-21
Proverbs 19:5--The day will come
when we will have to answer.
Matthew 12:36
Revelation 21:8--This is our
choice.
Romans 3:13
Who did John and Jesus call
vipers?
Matthew 3:7
Matthew 12:34
Do we want to be Christ like or Pharisee like?
Who are we called to be?
1 Thessalonians 2 13-15
Romans 16:18
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
Ephesians 4:14-15
I can remember as a child my sister and I were
making a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. Our mother had
gone somewhere, trusting we would be O.K. For some reason we
burned a batch of the cookies and had to throw them out. When our
mother got home she must have noticed the smaller amount of cookies
than should have been there, and she asked us about them. I
really can’t remember who came up with the response, but with my mind,
I’m going to say I did. It was not what I said but how I said
it. I answered in a joking tone saying, “We burned the whole
batch and had to throw them out.” That was the truth, but I used
deception to avoid possibly getting in trouble. My mom looked at
us, thought a moment and then said, “Oh you did not,” I told the truth,
got out of trouble with her, but it was in deception, it was wrong and
selfish. I was just a child, but that is not an excuse, it was
still wrong and I knew it. We are all taught truth in one faction
or another. As parents we expect our children to tell us the
truth and the children expect the parents to be the example and tell
them the truth. There shouldn’t be any difference whether at
school, work, entertainment, and so on. Truth should always be
truth, regardless of the circumstances.
It seems strange that we think we may pull the wool
over someone’s eyes, but God is watching and recording every lie
and deceitful thing we’ve ever done. Hebrews 4:13--Where does
that put our intelligence? We really thought we got away with
it. We’re not so intelligent after all, are we?
Romans 6:1-3, Romans 6:15 .
And yes, there is repentance and forgiveness, but
where’s the change? We are to have the mind of Christ.
Philippines 2:5, 1 Peter 4:1
Why is it so easy to lie? All the while
expecting someone to accept the lie, and if they don’t accept the lie
we make them out to be the bad person--isn’t this a little
backwards? We seem to get desensitized to lying when we are
children, and from childhood we learn how to pick and choose what is an
acceptable lie and what is just bending the truth for the sake of fun,
tradition, or to keep someone's feelings from being hurt.
Two examples that come to my mind are holidays and
answering truthfully when asked a question that could hurt someone’s
feelings.
Holidays: Christmas is a time when many
parents lie to their children by leading them to believe that Santa
Claus is real. And it goes further into lying by all the little
stories that come along with Santa. The fables of milk and
cookies, he knows if you’re naughty or nice, the reindeer stories, the
elves, and on and on. This is considered an acceptable lie.
Why?
Have you ever thought about when we tell our
children that there really isn’t a Santa (they will find out) that we
are telling them that there is no being that knows everything
(oops!). We have just made it difficult for our children to
believe in God. We’ve lied to them about one all knowing being,
why should they believe us about another?
How about the Easter bunny, can a rabbit really lay
eggs, color them and pass them out? This is an acceptable
lie. Why? Because it is cute and fun for the children?
Where is truth?
And the second, is how do you tell someone the truth
when you know it may hurt their feelings? A perfect example is
your wife or, worse yet, a friend asks you, “do you like my new
dress?” or “do you like my new hair style?” I honestly
don’t know what to say, I just pray that I’m not asked. And if I
am asked, the generic answer comes out, “Oh it’s okay” which leaves an
opening, “just okay?” If it is your wife, you are now in the
process of groveling and trying to cover tracks, hoping your godly relationship
will make the difference. If it’s a friend she will
more than likely accept the answer, but you can see that you have hurt
her feelings. It is important to be truthful in all
situations.
Even these difficult ones. The key here is to know what the truth
is.
I think that if you can lie to someone so readily on
the small subjects you can also do it in the large areas. We get
desensitized with every lie, by our justifications, and it becomes
easier and easier every time it’s done. But God knows every lie
and is grieved about every one of them. We should know better as
Christians.
Where is our heart when we chose to not be
true--lie? Matthew 15:19. Is it our selfish nature that
drives the desire to lie? John 7:18
You see, it’s not about lying. It’s about
telling the truth. It’s about not having anything false about
us. Okay, so how do we change and become truthful at everything
we do and say?
John 8:31-32 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus
said, "If you hold to my
teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." We need to look
at verse 31, It says “If you hold to
my teaching.”
Jesus gives us the answer. If we hold to His
teaching, not just part of what he taught but all of His teachings, not
picking and choosing the ones that may help us to justify our habits or
behaviors. John 14:23 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me,
he will obey my teaching. My Father will love
him, and we will
come to him and make our home with him."
How do we get to know the truth? I think we
all know the answer, but choose to ignore it. Knowing the answer
may cause change in our lives and change means uncertainty and
uncertainty means work on our part, possibly and probably means getting
out of the rut and comfort zone we are in and actually living the faith
we’ve been given.
We have to get into the word, apply it to our lives
and teach others to do the same. Recognizing when we want to lie,
we must stand against it not giving the devil a foot hold in our life.
Just a helpful hint. You can’t do it by
yourself. Ephesians 6:12
We need to go to Jesus and start being
truthful with him, we need His help and when we accept his help we need
to walk in his help--not turn back from it. We must start
being truthful with ourselves, and with Jesus.
If you can’t stand for the truth now, how will you
stand when the pressure is really on?
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