Last Lessons#53 - LYING

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Exodus 20:16 

“A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.”  Proverbs 14:5

It seems that we cannot trust anybody to tell the truth today.  Our politicians say one thing when they want to be elected and something else after they are elected.  Media pundits report the news with opposite statements.  How can they both be true?  It’s easy to be cynical and wonder if any media news reports are true at all.  We live in a culture of lies.  But God does not lie, and his Word does not lie, and Christians must not lie. 

“Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”  Colossians 3:9-10

Most Christians feel guilty when we deliberately tell a lie, but we do not see ourselves as liars when we do not keep our promises or when we do not keep our word.  Those things do not seem so bad as telling an outright lie.  But the Bible says otherwise.  Look at Matthew 5:33-37 and especially James 5:12 which says:

“But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

No Christian should have to swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”  Christians should always tell the truth.  Our word should be enough, and we should always keep our word.  And when we make a promise, we should keep it.  When something unexpected happens and we cannot fulfill a promise, we should explain to the person to whom we made the promise why we cannot keep our word, asking them to forgive us. 

It’s all a matter of trust, isn’t it?  Sadly, we have found that we cannot always trust politicians.  Some have found that they cannot trust a spouse.  Children cannot always trust their parents to keep promises.

There is only one who is trustworthy – God.  No one else is completely trustworthy.  That does not mean that we should not aim to be trustworthy and to always keep our promises.  The goal of a man should be to be known as a “man of his word.”  One of my goals is to be a “woman of her word.”

I have learned that the Bible is the only place where I can find truth.  It is the place around which I should organize my life because I can trust God’s Word. 

Who and what do you trust?