When The Door Slams
Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause, and do not deceive with your lips. Do not say, "I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done. (Proverbs 24 28-29 ESV)
There are three principle arguments for telling the truth. First, truth-telling is foundational for mental health. When people lie, they distort their perception of reality, fracturing their sense of self. Lying causes so much mental stress that skilled counsel can detect it through involuntary micro-expressions.
Second, honesty is essential for relational integrity. Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship, whether it's a couple falling in love or two countries negotiating a treaty. truthfulness creates an environment of reliability and safety. In contrast, deceit erodes trust and inevitably leads to suspicion and resentment.
Third, honesty is paramount for emotional resilience. If you can't tell others the truth, you can't tell yourself the truth. You will bend to the will and opinions of evil. Though flexibility is a good thing, pliability is demeaning and damaging, not just your own soul, but to every relationship you value. There are simply no social organizations, public or personal, that can endure without a culture of honesty.
Many prophets have their own accounts of how deception predicts decay in a nation (Jeremiah 5:1-3; Hosea 4:1-3; Amos 5:10-13). Isaiah mourned, "Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter" (Isaiah 59:14). Does this sound familiar?
Listen to this: We live in an unprecedented time in human history when fundamental truth are being reimagined. For the first time, marriage has been redefined as something other than a lifelong contract between a man and a woman. This has immense ramifications. Even the basic concept of gender has been redefined as personal preference rather than an unyielding binary fact of X and Y chromosomes. So how can we recover truth?
In the gospel of John, Truth is generally a person, not a proposition. John didn't portray Torah as truth as in the Old Testament. He portrayed Jesus as the embodiment of the truth. It begins in Chapter 1: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (verse 14).
Jesus affirmed that he is the Truth (5:33) and that knowing the Truth will set you free (8:32). He was clearest in John 14:6 when he claimed, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." At Jesus's trial, when Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus said, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." But Pilate replied, "What is truth?" 18:37-38. Truth was standing in front of Pilate, and tragically, he missed it. It is a mistake we should not repeat.
Think about this: One becomes a truthful person by embracing the person of Jesus as the Truth. When your identity comes from him, his truth will grow in you. His truth in you will overcome the temptation to exaggerate, omit details, or otherwise bend the truth in order to artificially prop yourself up. With Jesus in you, you can tell yourself the truth about yourself.
Meditation In Action: 1. When have you had to pay the price for a lie? Use the following definition: "A lie is any deceit in word, act, or silence." 2. Discuss this statement: "Truth-telling is more than a matter of doing the right thing; it is an issue of being the right kind of person." 3. How could allegiance to Jesus, the Truth, remove or reduce the temptation to lie?
Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness
Never Rest Ministries
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