But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being. (Ps. 51:6)(NLT)
Are you an honest person? Come on... tell the truth now. Are you a person of integrity--one who's truthful and sincere? That's the kind of person God wants us to be--because He is the Truth (Jn. 14:6), and He is looking for those who will worship Him in truth (Jn. 4:23). God abhors dishonesty and falseness of any kind. He hates lies. Those who are godly hate lies. (Prov. 13:5)(NLT) In fact, God cannot lie. (Titus 1:2) Did you know that Satan is called the father of lies? (Jn. 8:44)He will do whatever he can to steer you away from the truth of Who God is and away from the truth of God's redemptive plan.
There's a movie which many of you may have seen, called "A Few Good Men". The movie starred Tom Cruse and Jack Nicholson among others. At the climax of the movie there's a military trial and Tom Cruse's character, the navy prosecutor, asks Jack's character, a General, some questions trying to get to the bottom of a murder. The prosecutor says to the General--"I want the truth!" The General, yelling, replies--"You can't handle the truth!" Well, you know, the devil can't handle the truth, because God is the personification of truth. But God wants the truth. He wants honesty and sincerity from us in our worship and in our service of Him. He knows when we aren't truthful--when we're being even slightly dishonest. And our lies will eventually be exposed for what they are. Truth stands the test of time; lies are soon exposed. (Prov. 12:19)(NLT)
There are consequences for our dishonesty with God. We can see how serious God is about this in Acts 5:1-11. A married couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira sold some land and gave the money to the disciples. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, they lied about how much the land was sold for. Peter found out and spoke to each of them separately. He told them that they had not lied to him and the disciples but to God. And then they each dropped to the ground dead! You can believe that sent the fear of God through the community.
In Ezekiel chapter 13 we find that God despised the false prophets who were proclaiming good news when a warning was in order. These prophets who told lies to comfort the people, were like those who built a weak wall and held it together with whitewash. God told them that their deception would soon end, that their flimsy wall would soon crash down. And God wants us to speak the truth today as well. Sometimes we need to speak up for unpopular things in our society if that means that we are standing for the truth. We must choose to follow the Lord rather than our culture, our peers or our government.
So let's praise God that His Word is truth. Let's praise Him because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Let's pray that the Lord will expose any deception or falsehood in our life, and show us how we can worship Him in spirit and in truth causing us to become more like Jesus.
Singing His Praises,
Joey C.