Liar, Liar

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.””

~Genesis 3:8-13

When my kids were little, I heard a lot of excuses, and I heard a lot of blaming. It was always someone else’s fault no matter what happened. Or they flat out lied to me, even when I caught them doing something. But passing the buck, making excuses, and lying goes all the way back to the beginning of mankind. It’s part of our nature to want to share the blame and therefore, share the punishment. Adam and Eve did it. They stood face-to-face with God Almighty and straight up lied to Him! Every time I read that portion of the Bible, I’m struck by their audacity to lie to God’s face but one day, I read that and thought, wow, we are still lying to God’s face. Every single one of us lie to God’s face every time we deny that we need His help, His grace, and His forgiveness. Every time we blame someone else for our situation, we are lying to God. I’m not saying others don’t affect our lives, but we are ultimately responsible for our own lives and how we live them. We might follow the crowd but that doesn’t make it right. We make choices every single day that affect how our lives are going to be tomorrow and there’s no one to blame but ourselves. We are all big fat liars who don’t want to take responsibility for ourselves. It’s just so much easier to wallow than it is to stand up and say, “It’s my own fault. I did this. I’m the one who messed up my life.” There is no action that does not have a consequence, good or bad. Choose the action, and you are choosing the consequence.

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are His delight (Proverbs 12:22).”

I’ve lied. I’m just as guilty as everyone else. But what I came to realize it that lying does nothing good. It doesn’t help, in fact, it just digs a bigger hole that gets deeper and deeper until you can’t climb out. Lies hurt the one being lied to and the one doing the lying. Lying erodes the very foundation of every relationship we ever have. And those lies always come to light one way or another. To me, lying is just not worth the trouble. Another thing I’ve discovered is that the truth is a lot more fun. People seem geared to handle lies but the truth will throw them for a loop. But lying to others is one thing, lying to God is impossible. God sees all, knows all, hears all, and every time we lie, it breaks His heart. And there is no room for liars in Heaven.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 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 3:5-10).”

Read Psalm 119

Weekend reading Finish Psalm 119

©2018 Marie McGaha