No one had to teach me how to lie; I was spinning the truth almost as soon as I learned to talk. It came naturally, as you can see from this funny example my mom journaled about when I was just three years old:
Paula came to me today with diaper rash cream all over her hands and said, “The top came off.” She had spread it on the bottoms of two cloth clowns and put blankets over their bottoms (diapers, you know).
It’s a humorous story, but bending the truth—no matter how young we are—is never cute or innocent. We all have plenty of experience with lying, though. It’s human nature to cover up and cast ourselves in the best light whenever we think we might get into trouble. We’ve been doing that ever since Adam and Eve played the first blame-shifting game in the Garden.
So if lying comes almost as naturally as breathing to us since our first parents’ (Adam and Eve’s) fall into sin, how can we ever tell the truth? Or how about . . . what should motivate us to always tell the truth?
Several years ago right here on this blog, I asked, “What motivates you not to lie?” Many of you responded like this girl:
You know, the whole “don’t lie” thing. God doesn’t want me to lie. Why would I flat out disobey Him in something like that?
Why Not Lie?
It’s true that God commands us not to lie, but I think we need to dig deeper. Why does God hate lying? Why does lying make the top Ten Commandments cut?
You ready? Here are two reasons:
- God can’t lie.
Did you know that God’s commands reflect His character?
When God tells you and me not to lie, it’s because God never lies. In fact, He cannot lie. Here are just a couple verses that point this out:
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? (Num. 23:19).
. . . God, who never lies . . . (Titus 1:2).
Why can’t God lie? Because God is true. That’s just who He is. In fact, Jesus said that He Himself is truth:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, emphasis added).
You may have had people break your trust right and left. You might wonder if you can ever trust anyone again. But you never have to wonder when reading God’s words if He is exaggerating a bit, if He is stretching the truth, if He is being insincere, or if He will go back on His word. God never lies; He always keeps His promises.
But what does this truth about God have to do with us not lying? Well, because . . .
- We are created to represent God.
God cannot lie, and we are made in God’s image. Our purpose is to show the world the truth about who God is and what He is like:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1:26–27).
When we lie, we misrepresent Him and act more like Satan:
“He [Satan] . . . does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, emphasis added).
God has created us in His image. We are made to represent and image Him rightly to the world around us.
Today I’m blogging over at LiesYoungWomenBelieve.com. Click here to continue reading a couple practical steps about how to stop lying and start loving truth.
Paula (Hendricks) Marsteller is a compassionate, bold Christian communicator offering you gospel hope, thought-provoking questions, and practical help along the way.
