Colossians 3:9-10 NLT
“Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”
In my last newsletter I explained that this next series will be diving into the topic of “how sin hurts,” and I started by discussing the biblical reasons why sin is painful. The first specific sin I want to focus on is lying and how it causes pain. I mentioned this example briefly in my previous post—when we lie to someone, we hurt our relationship with that person. We also suffer from the consequences that come from lying when we are “caught.” “Do not lie” was one of the first commands God gave His people in the old Testament, as it is the 9th of the Ten Commandments. Today I want to look more deeply at what the Bible teaches about lying and show some biblical examples of how it always causes pain and hurt.
I love how Paul talks so bluntly about the sin of lying in the opening verses from Colossians 3. He commands the Colossian believers to not lie to each other because that is not a part of their new nature in Christ. Once we have put our faith in Christ, we are “stripped” of our old sin nature and its wicked deeds, as Paul states in verse 9. Yet just because we have a new, saved nature in Christ, it does not mean we won’t struggle with the temptations still to sin. That’s why Paul is commanding them not to lie, as well as commanding them to “put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him.” The Christian life is a journey of sanctification—learning to say no to sin more and say yes to learning how to become more like our Savior.
So why is lying considered a “wicked deed”? How does lying hurt others? As we’ve been teaching our foster daughter about why lying is bad, a friend encouraged me to think about how Satan wants us to lie, because he is the father of lies:
John 8:44
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
While she has not yet put her faith in Christ, she does understand a lot of what the Bible teaches about God. She knows He is good and loves her, and she understands that He gave us the commands in the Bible to follow. So when I explained to her who Satan was, how he was God’s enemy and ours, I shared that he loves to make us disobey God’s Word. That’s exactly what Jesus was trying to communicate to “the Jews who had believed him” (John 8:31). Lying is wicked because it comes from the devil. Jesus even equates lying with murder, since he states that the devil has been a murderer and liar from the beginning. We can’t excuse lying as an acceptable sin, because it goes against the character of who God is just as much as murder does.
The Bible teaches us that God is truth, the opposite of lies:
Numbers 23:19
God is not human, that he should lie,
not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?
Psalm 119:160
All your words are true;
all your righteous laws are eternal.
When we choose to lie, we participate in the ways of the devil. We go against our God who is a pure, holy God, full of truth. Instead of becoming more like our Creator (Colossians 3:10), we hurt our relationship with our Lord Jesus because He is the embodiment of truth.
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
1 Peter 2:22
“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
We also hurt our relationship with others when we lie. Trust can only be built when people speak truthfully to each other. We can trust God, because from His Word we know He only ever speaks truth. He will never deceive us, and history proves His faithfulness. We can trust God because His character is that of truth.
In human relationships, trust is something we earn. I have seen that vividly with our foster daughter—from the beginning of her time with us we told her that she could trust us because we would always tell her the truth. But she didn’t just take us at our word. We have had to live that statement out and demonstrate to her that we mean what we said. It has been a blessing by God’s grace alone to see her grow in trusting us as we have sought to be trustworthy. Yet as she trusts us more, we see her desire to lie come out more too. We, like her, often deceive ourselves into thinking that lying will protect or preserve our relationship with others, when it does just the opposite.
Any time we disobey God’s commands, including when we lie, there are painful consequences for those sins. Let’s look at the example of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. They were a couple who were claiming to be believers, living in the community and fellowship described at the end of Acts 4. In that description of the early church, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had” (Acts 4:32). Then we see an example of a man named Barnabas living that out in Acts 4:36-37, where he sells his field and gives the proceeds to the apostles.
Right after that beautiful description of what church community looked like, we read about the sad story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. This couple sold their property and decided to withhold a portion of the money they received from it from the apostles. Ananias presented the gift as if it was the entire proceeds from their sale. When Ananias brought this donation to Peter’s feet, the Holy Spirit revealed to Peter that he had been lied to. Peter explained to Ananias that when he lied, he didn’t just lie to the apostles—he lied to God’s Holy Spirit, to God Himself. And what was the result? Both him and his wife were struck down dead in front of the apostles when their lies were exposed. This “extreme” punishment for one lie serves as a vivid picture of how God views all sin the same—worthy of death.
But how often do we actively think about our lies as being directed at the God of the universe rather than just toward the person or people we’re trying to deceive? Not often enough, for we more commonly convince ourselves that “no one will know” or that “no one will get hurt” from our lies. Isn’t it crazy how the devil is so good at deceiving us into believing that God doesn’t know? Sometimes we think it seems silly that Adam and Eve hid from God in the garden—yet when choose to sin we too are acting as if God can’t see us.
To combat the painful effects of lying, we must acknowledge God’s truth. We need to remind ourselves actively of the hurt that lying causes in relationships, of how it breaks trust and builds up walls. We need to regularly reflect on who God is and how He has called us to become more like Him. By the power of His Spirit, by going to Him through the study of His Word and prayer, He enables us to grow more into the image of Christ. Putting on our new nature and renewing our mind is something we must keep doing during our life on this earth. We won’t be made perfect until we see Jesus face to face, but we can grow in loving truth and being people of truth as we reflect more on Him and what He has done for us. I pray that’s the encouragement you leave with today, friend. Lying like all sin is common to all—but we have been set free! How do you plan to change and walk more in that freedom and truth today?
Thank you for walking through this topic with me, and I look forward to studying more about the effects of specific sins we struggle with next time. Thanks for listening or reading to Speaking Truth!
Share this post