Why do people tell lies? Well, that’s easy. Because lying might enable guilty people to escape responsibility and consequences for their misdeeds. Because lying might preserve the illusion of their innocence. Because lying helps the sinner avoid having to face up to the ugly and soul-polluting reality of the sin. 

But here’s the problem—when you tell lies, you not only lie to a person; you are also lying to yourself. And if you do that often enough, you will lose your ability to tell the difference between truth and lie. Furthermore, you are lying to God, damaging your relationship with him. Words of truth are his saving lifeline to us—when we trash the truth, we risk the gospel itself. Jesus once called lying Satan’s native language, “for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). 

You can’t control what other people do with their mouths, but you can control your own: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:9,10). Let your love for God be accompanied by a love for truth, for all truth is his. Trust that he will bless you for telling the truth, even when you fear it will cost you. In the long run, your life will be better. 

Would God lie to you?