Honesty is always the best policy. Are we known for being a truly honest person, or do people have to wonder if we are telling the truth? Honest lips spring from an honest heart.

We are called to be Jesus' witnesses. Like a witness in court, we are called to tell the truth. There is, however, one difference between the witness in court and the witness for Christ. The witness in court eventually steps down from the witness chair, but the witness for Christ never does. Our court is always in session, and we always remain under oath. For the Christian, deception is never an option. It certainly wasn't an option for Jesus.

Jesus and Honesty

One of the most astounding assessments of Christ is this summary from Isaiah 53:9:

Isaiah 53:9
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Jesus was staunchly honest. His every word was accurate, and his every sentence was true. Not once did Jesus stretch the truth. Not once did Jesus avoid the truth. Jesus simply told the truth - no deceit was found in his mouth. Our God has been clear about honesty.

Psalm 101:7
No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

Proverbs 12:22
The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.

Proverbs 6:16-17
16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

Psalms 5:6
You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.

Revelation 21:8
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Why is it that God takes such a hard line on honesty? One reason is that dishonesty is absolutely contrary to the character of God.

Hebrews 6:18
God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

It's not that God will not lie or that He has chosen not to lie - He cannot lie.

The book of Titus echoes the same words as the book of Hebrews:

Titus 1:2
a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,

God always speaks truth. When He makes a promise, He keeps it. When God makes a statement, He means it. When God proclaims the truth, we can believe it.

Satan, on the other hand, finds it impossible to tell the truth. According to Jesus, the devil is "the father of lies"

John 8:44
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. 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.

If you remember, deceit was the first tool out of the devil's bag. In the Garden of Eden, Satan didn't discourage Eve, or seduce her, he just lied to her.

Genesis 3:1-4
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.

Satan said to Eve, "God says you'll die if you eat the fruit, but I'm telling you that you will surely not die." Eve was suckered, and the fruit was plucked, and her husband followed suit, and the innocence of the garden was lost. The devil is still spinning his deceitful webs and we are still falling into his traps.

The Wages of Deceit

Look at some of the results of a Psychology Today survey:

* More people say they have cheated on their spouse than on their tax returns.

* More than half say that if their tax returns were audited, they would probably owe the government money.

* About one out of three people admits to deceiving a best friend about something within the last year.

* Nearly half predict that if they scratched another car in the parking lot, they would drive away without leaving a note - although 89% agree that would be immoral.

* There is a story about a guy who hit someone's car in a parking lot. Because many people were watching, the man took a piece of paper and wrote some things on the paper and put it under the windshield wiper of the car he hit. The people watching assumed he had wrote his contact information, but all he wrote was: "Sorry I hit your car. People are watching me write this note, but I can't give you my contact information, sorry."

Why do we tolerate such dishonesty? How do we explain our dishonesty? Jeremiah was so right when he announced:

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

If we are honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we often don't like the truth. Maybe we have heard the story of the man who received a call from his wife while she was on a business trip. She asked, "How's my cat?" He said, "I'm sorry to say, your cat is dead." She was upset with him. "Why were you so bluntly honest? Why didn't you break news to me slowly?" "What do you mean?" Her husband asked. She explained, "When I called today, you could have said that my cat was on the roof and wouldn't come down. Then when I called the next day, you could have said that he had fallen off the roof and the vet was working on patching him up. Then when I called the third day, you could have said he had passed away." Her husband apologized. Then his wife asked, "So how's my Mom?" Her husband hesitated, "Well, She's on the roof and won't come down."

We don't like the truth. Our credo is "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you squirm." Our dislike for the truth began at a young age when mom walked into the room and asked, "Did you hit your brother? Did you hit your sister?" We knew then and there that honesty had its consequences. So we learned to try to avoid the truth. "Did I hit baby brother? That all depends on how you interpret the word 'hit.' I mean, sure I made contact with him, but would a jury consider it a hit? Everything is relative, you know."

Or we might respond, "Did I hit baby brother? Yes, I did, but it's not my fault. Had I not been born with such aggressive chromosomes, or if you had not permitted me to watch so much television, then it never would have happened. So, you can say I hit my brother, but it's not my fault." The truth, we learn early, is not fun.

Not only do we not like the truth, we don't trust the truth. Often the truth seems inadequate to do what we need done. We want our boss to like us, so we flatter. We call it polishing the apple. God calls it a lie. We want people to admire us, so we exaggerate. We call it stretching the truth. God calls it a lie. We want people to respect us, so we live in houses we can't afford, and charge bills we can't pay. We call it the our way. God calls it living a lie.

Ananias and Sapphira are a good example of what we are talking about.

Acts 5:11
Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

They sold a piece of property and gave half the money to the church. They lied to Peter and the apostles, claiming that the land sold for the amount they gave. Their sin was not in holding back some of the money for themselves; it was in misrepresenting the truth in order to impress others.

Their deceit resulted in their deaths. The Bible says, "Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. " Often after reading that story, people say with a nervous chuckle, "I'm glad God doesn't still strike people dead for lying." But He doesn't - not the death of the body, but the death of other things.

* The death of a marriage - falsehoods in marriage are like termites in the foundation of a house - they lead to its collapse - it's death.

* Or the death of a conscience - the tragedy of the second lie is that it is always easier to tell than the first.

* Or the death of a career - just ask the employee who got fired for falsifying reports if the lie wasn't fatal.

We could also list the death of intimacy, trust, credibility and self-respect. But perhaps the most tragic death that occurs from deceit is the death of our witness. The court won't listen to the testimony of a perjured witness, and neither will the world. Certainly God won't and can't use us as a witness if we won't tell the truth.

Facing the Music : An interesting explanation says that many years ago a man conned his way into the orchestra of the emperor of China even though he couldn't play a note. Whenever the orchestra performed, he would hold his flute against his lips and pretended to play without making a sound. He received a modest salary and enjoyed a comfortable life. One day the emperor requested a solo from each musician. The flutist got nervous because there wasn't enough time to learn to play the instrument. He pretended to be sick, but the royal physician wasn't fooled. On the day of his scheduled solo performance, the impostor took poison and killed himself. The explanation of his suicide led to a phrase that found its way into the English language: "He refused to face the music." The cure

for deceit is simply this: to face the music. We need to simply tell the truth - to ourselves, to God and to others.
* When we examine our hearts do we find that we are living with deceit?
* We need to ask ourselves: Will God bless my deceit?
* Will He, who hates lies, bless a strategy built on lies?
* Will He, who loves the truth, bless the business of falsehoods?
* Will God advance the career of a flatterer or cheater?

We know the answer to those questions - It is emphatically "NO."

Let's examine our hearts and ask ourselves some tough questions.
1. How honest am I being with God?
2. How honest am I being with my spouse and children?
3. Are my relationships marked by candor?
4. Am I honest in all of my dealings?
5. Am I trustworthy and reliable?
6. Do I tell the truth always - the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Look again at our Scripture Reading:

Ephesians 4:25
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

We are all members of Christ's body. Jesus has an honest heart, and since we are a part of Him, we must be like Him. We must not delay cultivating an honest heart. We must put off falsehood. The ripple of today's lie is tomorrow's wave and next year's flood.

Remember: Satan wants to sell us a lie.
1. Satan tells us that we can't trust God or the truth.
2. Satan is telling us that there is no heaven, no hell, and there is no hurry.
3. But we know better than to believe Satan.

Jesus is the way and the truth, and we can trust Him. Jesus has told us that we can know the truth and that the truth will set us free.

John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Let's learn the truth, love the truth, live the truth, and speak the truth.

1 John 1:8-10
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives Let's turn to the Lord and be truthful about our sins and our need for His grace.

Let's ask God to help us to have a more honest heart just like Jesus.

A Heart Like this:

The good news for us is that God is also in the makeover business. He takes the very worst of who we are, heals, forgives and enables us to become just like Jesus. God makes us into new creations.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Rather than just some kind of external transformation, God does His work from the inside out. In order for us to be able to look like and act like Jesus on the outside, first we must become like Him on the inside. That's why the place we must begin is in the heart.

God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way. He wants to help us to be just like Jesus.. This might explain why we face challenges and experience some discomforts in our lives - we are a "work-in-progress.". Remodeling of the heart can be uncomfortable, just like surgery is uncomfortable.

C.S. Lewis wrote: "When I was a child, I often had a toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother, she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother - at least not till the pain became very bad.

And the reason I did not go was this: I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist the next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from my pain; but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache."

Our Lord is like the dentist. Many go to Him to be cured of some particular problem. We want a simple aspirin and quick relief of pain. Certainly, God will treat the pain, but He will not stop there. God is not content to simply remove the pain. No God wants to deal with the true problem - our heart. And He will not be finished until we are fully "conformed to the likeness of His Son."

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.