Tell the truth!

I'm fed up with lies. Not so much the ones people tell against or to you (though they can be pretty painful), no, the ones I'm really angry about are the one the enemy convinces people of.

Here's some we thought of earlier!

• I am not significant
• I am not loved
• I have to acieve in order to have value
• I am not valuable
• This is just the way I am, nothing can change
• I have to be really good so I am not rejected by God
• I have to be perfect
• I am too hard a case for God to work with
• I don't really have any gifts

If we live out of these false beliefs, we are disempowered or paralysed and whilst we might be 'saved' we are neither free nor experiencing the abundant life that Jesus promised. So a word about belief...

Believing has nothing to do with being intellectually persuaded that something is true. Belief has everything to do with living your life as if it is true, irrespective of how persuaded your mind or heart are about it. It's called faith. Strangely, as we live our life directed by faith rather than by sight (what we see, what experience tells us, what our feelings say), what we find is that gradually our mind and feelings swing into alignment with what we have chosen to believe. It isn't enough to tick off statements on some creed, or to say 'the prayer'! Belief is not about a one off transaction, it's a lifelong process of choosing to act in a way that is consistent with believing that God is who He says He is. That's why James is so hot on hypocrisy and faith. Faith that doesn't outwork itself in a lifestyle that is lined up with the God in whom we have faith, is not faith at all! It's just an intellectual set of assertions. A lifestyle that is contrary to the character of God exposes the lie of our stated belief. Worse than that, people will either believe our actions and assume that the God whose name we bear behaves in the same way. Or they will believe our words only for them to be undermined by our actions.

Back to those lies. If we live out of them, we not only live a life less than God lovingly designed for us, but we risk making it more difficult for those around us to see that God as well! So how do we move away from the lies presented by the world, by our senses, by others who deliberately or inadvertantly speak lies? How do we live out of truth? Here's some remarkably simple steps for transforming our lives!

Step1. Confession. Old fashioned word that just means seeing it from God's point of view. What does he say about you - about everybody?

Step2. Declaration. Personalise and regularly speak out the truth you have now recognised

Step 3. Repentance. More old fashioned words - repentance just means to change your mind. Now you see it from God's perspective and you come to recognise that it is true for yourself. (This is a battle, so when the old thoughts sneak in we are encouraged to 'take every thought captive to Christ' - don't leave them in your brain to fester, give them to God to deal with!)

Step 4. Make choices based on the new perspective - even if it is still an act of faith rather than a felt or reasoned thing yet - heart and mind will swing in line over time!

Here's an example. Let's say you have been living your life as if the truth was that you are unloved. Confession would acknowledge that however you feel, whatever your past, God's view is that you are loved. In fact He would say that you are loved with an everlasting love, a love that knows no bounds. Declaration would turn that general statement into the personal. Something like 'I acknowledge that God loves me so much that he died for me'. And every time someone does or says something that seems to contradict that, or every time a contrary thought comes into our head, we repeat the declaration - no matter how we feel about it's truth. Finally, and crucially, we behave as if it is true - irrespective of whether we yet feel it is true or not. It's faith, we give it a chance to prove itself!

So when you feel intimidated by the room of strangers, you hold your head up high and have a renewed confidence - because after all, who are these people to be intimidated by, you are loved by the King of Kings! When someone says something hurtful and you are tempted to respond in kind or retreat into the pain, instead you choose to believe God's view and out of the security that comes from that, you are able to see past the hurt to the wounded heart of the person who offended you...

That's just one example. We know most of us struggle to some degree with the lies in our life. So why not gove these steps a go? Better still, tell us about it via the comments, or click here if you'd like some concrete help with the lie that affects you.