The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?
Jeremiah 17:9 NLT
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
John 14:6 NLT
But I will send you the Advocate– the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. John 15:26 NLT
Why is it that lies are so much easier for us than truth? Well, to begin with, as Jeremiah says, there is a lie at the center of our personalities. The lie is that I am the center of all things, and that satisfaction of my desires for comfort, pleasure, possessions, power, and security is the only thing worth living for.
But what is so bad about that? Foolish, yes. Silly, yes, but desperately wicked? How? Because we have to destroy everything that stands in the way of that false vision. That’s why Cain killed Abel. Oh, we would like to stop well short of murder, but there it is. Why is it so hard to tell the truth? It’s because the truth will only rarely, if ever, serve the lie that is at the heart of our existence. The truth stands over against us and convicts us. “Did you break Mommy’s vase?” “Oh, no, it was my sister.” Lies are convenient; truth rarely is.
So what is to be done. We have to start by admitting the truth about ourselves. “God is the center of the world, not me, and satisfying his desires, not mine, is the most important thing in the world. Left to myself I will lie all the time to protect myself and project myself.” How can we ever come to that place? It is when we open our hearts to The Truth – the only truly self-giving, self-denying One in the Universe, the One, who being absolutely free from the need to aggrandize himself, can be absolutely true to his promises. He promises to forgive us for all our past lies – and even better! – give us the Spirit of Truth, so that we can be like him – true.
Called To Be Transformed 