A man wrecked his truck recently.
He lied to his insurance company about how it happened.
Why?
For the money, of course.
The man who told me this story thought nothing of it.
I said, “You mean he lied?”
“Well, yeh, otherwise they might not have covered it.”
“So he was willing to sell out his integrity for a little bit of money.”
I watched a movie recently that took place in
A lot of people believe that, that we are born good, then learn to do bad.
I think that’s crazy. First of all, why would anyone want to learn to do bad? We punish bad. Bad brings pain and trouble and heartache. We all know this, and yet we end up doing bad anyway.
Bad has a gravitational pull. We know we shouldn’t, but we are drawn to it.
I had this discussion with my teenagers the other day. They felt like kids didn’t start out bad. I said, “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve never had kids!”
I said, “I watched all of you from the womb. All of you came out selfish, demanding your own way about everything. As soon as you could coordinate your arm, you threw something in rage. As soon as you could talk, you lied. As soon as you understood what not to do, you became deceptive to try to do it anyway.”
We have the funniest home video of my daughter at a very young age. She was told not to do something, so she turned her back on us to do it anyway. She had these huge blue eyes, and she kept peeking over her little shoulder at us, as if she was successfully deceiving us.
The sad thing is, as we get older we get better at deception.
Now listen to this. The main reason we deceive is to avoid consequences.
Go back to Eve in the Garden of Eden. When did her deception begin? It began when she told herself that it was okay to eat the fruit God told her not to eat.
She was told that if she ate it there would be consequences. But as she analyzed her situation, she decided that the fruit looked good, that it would taste good, and “Wow, this serpent here says it’ll make me wise!”
Her deception started with herself. She deceived herself into thinking it was okay.
Take the guy in the insurance story. His deception did not begin by lying to the insurance man. He first had to deceive himself that it was okay, that the benefit of some extra bucks was worth the cost of his integrity.
My little daughter had deceived herself, that if she just turned her back on us, that she could go ahead and do what she wanted.
It seems our minds know no bounds when it comes to self deception, and we come by it naturally. We are born with it.
This is why it is so important to stay plugged in to God. How can you tell the difference between a lie and the truth? By keeping your eye on the truth.
I know I bang this drum constantly, but we must find time for prayer and Bible study. By drawing near to God in prayer, and by studying the Word of God, we are far less likely to fall for our own self deception.
Let me point blank ask you. Are you doing something you know is wrong, but you are doing it anyway? If so, why? At what price your integrity? How have you deceived yourself into thinking that it’s okay?
Now here’s the thing. We lie to avoid consequences, but the lying brings a far worse consequence! It erodes your integrity. And not just in the eyes of others. Let’s suppose they never find out.
Listen…lying erodes the integrity of your own mind!
Don’t let that happen. Don’t allow yourself to think that doing wrong is okay or justified. Get plugged into God through prayer and Bible study.
And remember this. No price is worth your integrity.
(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)
First Chronicles 29:17 “I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity.”
Proverbs 10:9 “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.”
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