Putting Away Lying

"Wherefore putting away lying, speaking every man truth with his neighbor:  for we are members one of another."  Eph. 4:25

Paul always lays down a doctrinal platform before he proceeds to ethical mandates.  It cannot be otherwise.  New Testament ethics have a foundation grounded in the self-revelation of Theos in Iesous.  Therefore we have a living foundation that abides forever more.  The constantly believing ones are a new creation.  They are anthropologically other and require an ethical standard that is consistent with their new identity.

Iesous is the Truth.  There is no foundation other than He.  There is no ethical hall of mirrors to which we subscribe, and neither do we follow situation ethics or moral relativism.  We have stepped out beyond the groundless hubris of well written, and well argued obfuscation, 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing', that seeks to enslave through subtle disguise.  Truth is rarely honored within a milieu that lifts up lying as the currency of the realm, and those who oppose lying may find themselves within a bullied minority.

Remember when lying was scandalous  We are well beyond that sign post. Lying or falsehood rules.  It is interesting to watch those who are given to lying.  They are unaware that the physiology of their persons adapt to their soul's distortion by parallel physiologic-emotional contortions of the physical body.  Lying introduces imbalance in the soul and in the body.  In other words, when we are untrue or lie everything about us is thrown out of balance.  I mean everything.

God has designed us to have balance.  The opposite of truth is pseudos or falsehood.  It takes great effort to build one's life around a lie.  It is highly stressful.  One has succeeded when one has so absorbed a lie that it becomes one's truth.

Lying destroys the person and reduces life to monstrous intrigue.  One lie is used to hide another lie until lying becomes a state of being, being a 'Liar.'  This is one of the greatest self-betrayals.  I remember a woman who suffered from terrible headaches.  She had gone to see a doctor about her headaches, and was given a prescription to her condition, but it did not work.  She was a beautiful woman who lived in a very nice home, and she seemed to have everything.

However, when my wife and I met her husband we knew that something was not right with him.  He had an attitude of haughty disdain and superiority, and everything he said bordered on clever repartee but his words were metallic and scolding. This man was the assistant pastor of a church we attended.  One day he sat behind me at church and asked what I as reading.  I told him and he began to laugh.  It was later discovered that this person had 'fallen' in love with a teenage girl at the church, and began to live out his lie.

This person got one of his friends at the church to act as as witness to what was called his 'spiritual wedding' to the teenage girl.  This assistant was caught, disciplined, and left the church, and his real wife's headaches disappeared. His real wife left him and moved on with her life.  His real wife's spirit knew that something was amiss in their relationship, but she could not say precisely what was not right.

The liar believes his own lies.  His self-molestation is complete.  His idolatrous pathology of lying bespeaks the diseased condition of his soul.  When Paul speaks of putting away lying it is not a suggestion.  It is a prescriptive and imperative command to guard oneself from abysmal self-pollution that lying engenders.

If you have a lie that is destroying your spiritual freedom confess it to God.  If you have been made party to a lie separate yourself therefrom and confess it to God.  Lies distort, contort, twist, close down real relationships and enslaves the lying one.

The liar has no freedom.  He has constructed his own prison.  Iesous is there to give freedom to those whose lives have been ruined by lies and set adrift by the chaos thereof.  The Iesous has come that we all may have life in superabundance. Ask him to set you free today.

Blessings to you.

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