Words of Manipulation

Content library Words of Manipulation
Share
Share

Southeast Christian Church

Sep 28, 2021

In John 8:44, we learn that Satan is the father of lies, that lies are his native language. Jesus, on the other hand, is the truth. When we speak lies—in whatever form they may come—we speak the language of the enemy. It was a lie that brought Adam and Eve to sin and caused separation between God and his people. And it’s been lies, ever since, that have kept humanity in an endless cycle of sin.

So, it’s not that it’s bad to lie—it goes much deeper than surface-level morality. Manipulation, gossip, exaggeration, slander, breaking promises, white lies—all of these are forms of lies spoken in the enemy’s native language. Every one of us falls into some sort of falsehood more often than we could admit.

We say things like, “I’ll be there soon,” when you know that “soon” means another 15 minutes past the 30 minutes you are already late. We say, “I didn’t know,” when we really knew but feel bad that we forgot. We talk badly about someone else. Most of the time, when we lie, we are trying to make ourselves look good or control the way people see us.

Falsehood creates cracks and divisions among the people of God when we should be the most united group of people on this earth. The minute we decide to entertain a little bit of falsehood is the minute we create another crack in the Body of Christ. So, when Paul calls us to put off falsehood, he is calling us to step into our identity as children of God and speak the language of our Father instead of our enemy.

Reflection/Discussion Question: What form of lying do you find yourself speaking most often?

Community tags

This content has 0 tags that match your profile.

Lifestyle

Comments

To leave a comment, login or sign up.

Related Content

0

Hold You Accountable

When lust captures us in the dark, we buy into lies that keep us in the dark: “You’ll lose everything if someone finds out.” “What are people going to think if they know?” “No one wants to know those details about your life.” “If you tell someone, it will end. You don’t want it to end.” It feels inescapable, so we do everything we can to cover it up in order to avoid coming clean. There is no freedom in the darkness. When we live in the darkness, sin has the power and control. But God has given us a community of believers to hold us accountable. It can be scary and uncomfortable to ask friends to hold us accountable, but the more we get into the habit of holding one another accountable, the more it becomes normal in our friendships. We tend to believe the lie that we would come off judgmental, annoying, or arrogant, but we have to remind ourselves that to hold a friend accountable is one of the most loving things we can do. When we hold each other accountable, we aren’t waiting for “gotcha” moments where we can lay on the guilt and shame. Instead, we have a chance to remind one another of the goodness of God and the wealth of his grace. We remind our friends that we have the chance to restore one another and have the kind of deep fellowship we were created for. Reflection/Discussion Question: How can you start implementing accountability into your community?

0

Defining Jesus's Love

In today’s world of “Churchianity”, it’s easy to place the name of Jesus on a lot of rituals and beliefs that have nothing to do with truly loving Jesus. We’ve gotten so good at doing church that we believe “doing church” is synonymous with loving Jesus. We have settled for a life of going through the motions in place of a life marked by the love of Jesus. We are more concerned with whether or not we liked the worship songs than we are with submitting ourselves in worship to God. We are more concerned with whether or not the sermon inspired us enough than we are with turning our eyes to the truth of God’s Word. We busy ourselves with volunteering in the same spot every Sunday, rather than pursuing the lost people in our midst. We would rather settle for “Churchianity” than full submission to Jesus. We think that loving Jesus is a warm feeling in our heart while living our lives relatively the same, but Jesus won’t settle for this imitation. In Luke 9, Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (NIV). If we are committing to Jesus, we are committing to taking up our own cross and dying, daily. We are committing to gripping the plow and not looking back. Jesus wasn’t just a nice guy with good advice on how to live our lives — Jesus is the savior of the world. He defeated sin and death and calls us to be ministers of his love to the rest of the world. To love Jesus is to live the same kind of radically sacrificial life that he lived when he walked on this earth. Reflection/Discussion Question: Are your definition of loving Jesus and Jesus’s definition of loving him the same?