God Loves Liars
HOW WE FIND RESPITE IN A RAGING FIRE
The charred smell of smoke spreads for miles under the burnt, hazy sky—unusual for midafternoon. Reports of uncontrollable flames flicker on the evening news through apathetic TV screens. Residents of California, especially, know that wildfires are an ever-present threat to their backyards because the threat keeps growing yearly. It’s now a fact of life that more people are dying even though billions of dollars are spent fighting the flames. All this from raging fires that only ever begin as a single flame in the right conditions.1
Wildfires are truly powerful, proven by the physical and economic destruction left behind. That’s why God compares them to the act of lying: “See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity” (James 3:5-6, NKJV). The little white lies, the fibs, the exaggerations, and the half-truths we think we get away with do more damage than we realize, and we are all spiritual arsonists poised to strike the next match.
More Dangerous Than We Think
Lying comes in many forms, and we all know that hurtful, compulsive lying is wrong. We easily let ourselves off the hook because we don’t lie like that. But, who hasn’t put a lower weight on their driver’s license, told someone they looked nice when their clothes were hideous, or perpetuated that Santa is real to keep up the Christmas tradition? The more we tell seemingly innocuous tales like these, the more our brains get used to it, and we feel less guilty.2
…we are all spiritual arsonists poised to strike the next match.
What we see as harmless, God sees as destructive. To Him, there are no categories of better or worse lies. Apart from being one of the ten commandments (“Thou shalt not lie”), the Bible also makes this description: “The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell…but no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” 3
Furthermore, while it would be a good thing to stop lying, it would also be a fool’s errand to think the problem is with our words alone. Our words only give away what is in our hearts, which is much harder to change.4 Our heart, the epicenter of thoughts, emotions, motives, and desire, is described as “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJV). Even if we fake morality on the outside, we are still sinful at the core. And, just because lying is often culturally acceptable doesn’t excuse us from the inevitable consequences. Opportunities, relationships, our reputation, and our joy will smolder and suffer if we turn our backs and ignore the impending blaze.
More Hope Than We Know
Despite how much we offend God with our lying (and many other sins), we are not without hope. God, at the expense of His own Son, allows us to be made right with Him: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from unrighteousness…And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation [appeasement] for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world” (1 John 1:9-2:2, NKJV). If we confess our lying with a humble heart and seek forgiveness, Jesus is faithful to wipe it from our record.
Moreover, loving Jesus should compel us to action. We’ll want to stop lying because we don’t want sin to interfere with our relationship. Does that mean we’ll never lie again? Nope. We will continue to battle sin until we’re dead, but God promises that it won’t have victory over us.
Everyone’s past is a forest fire of words we wish we hadn’t said, lies we deliberately told, and slander, cursing, and backbiting peppered throughout our conversations. If only we’d known the damage done before the flames got out of control. Nevertheless, ashes fall where they may, but lucky for us, God can make a holy and righteous life grow even in a place like that.
1ucdavis.edu/climate/news/californias-2020-wildfire-season-numbers
2iheart.com/podcast/1119-deeply-human-77473739/episode/lying-79972896/
3James 3:5-8, NKJV
4Matthew 15:11