Helping people take the NEXT STEP in their relationship with JESUS

I don’t know about you, but I hate being lied to.  I would rather watch the Lifetime Channel for three days straight while sitting in a room piled full of dirty diapers than to be lied to.  That is how bad I hate being lied to.

There are basically two reasons why being lied to is so devastating and so destructive.  First of all, when you find out that someone has lied to you, you lose trust in that person.  All of a sudden, you begin to question everything that person has ever said.  You wonder what other things have they lied to you about.  And from that point on, you have a difficult time trusting anything that person says.  Lies destroy your ability to trust.

The second reason that lies are so devastating and so destructive is that lies are basically false information.  And when we are making decisions in life we take into account all the information that we have available, and then we make our decision.  When someone gives us false information, we are likely to make a poor decision that will ultimately lead us to an undesirable outcome.  Lies are basically false information that causes us to make poor decisions that lead to undesirable outcomes.

 LIES

FALSE INFORMATION  >  POOR DECISION  >  UNDESIREABLE OUTCOME

 Being lied to is like receiving bad directions to someone’s house.  If you had no idea where I lived and I told you that the directions to my house were to start out on George Wallace Dr. by Troy University, head toward Charles Henderson High School.  Take a right on Elm St., Turn left on Butter and Egg Road, and keep going until you see a water tower on your right, and after you pass the water tower take the first dirt road to the right and we are the fifth house on the right.  If I told you that those were the directions to my house, that would be a lie and you would never arrive at my house using that information.  You would not end up where you planned on ending up.  You see, the false information that I gave you would lead you to make poor decisions, that would not get you to your desired destination.

Lies can lead us to places that we never intended to go.  Lies can lead us to make terrible decisions.  Decisions that cause us tremendous amounts of embarrassment, guilt, pain, shame, and regret.  That is why it is so important for you to surround yourself with people that you can trust and that tell the truth.

But despite how careful you are in your relationships, there will always be one person in your life that will lie to you.  There will always be someone that will try to mislead you.  And that person is the devil.  The Bible says this in John 8:44:

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  –John 8:44

When most of us think about the devil, we think about this scary red creature with horns and a pitchfork.  We see him as the source of evil.  Someone that we hope to never see face to face.  But the truth is that what most of us don’t realize about the devil is that his primary weapon is deception.  His specialty is lying.  Because Satan knows that if he can confuse or twist the truth, he can control our decisions and ultimately the outcome of our lives.

My question for you today is this: “What lies are you believing?”  Is it possible that you are making decisions today based on a lie?  Is it possible that you are heading toward disaster because you don’t know the truth?  If so, I would like to submit to you that there is one source of truth, and that is God’s Word.  The only way to recognize a lie is by knowing the truth.  So my challenge for you is to begin to immerse yourself in the truth of God’s Word.  To read it and apply it.  To choose to believe that God’s Word is the truth and anything or anyone that contradicts it is a liar.  If you will do that, you will be able to recognize and reject the lies of the devil.