There is no place for lying in the life of the believer because there is no place for lying in God.
It is not necessary for God to lie (Num. 23:19), and it is impossible for God to lie (Tt. 1:2; Heb. 6:18). There is nothing in God that is ever attracted to any form of falsehood. He can never deceive. He is unpretentious. He will never exaggerate or flatter. He will not conceal truth with the intent to deceive. He will never leave promises unfulfilled.
Stated positively, God is wholly committed to the truth. He will only speak that which is truth. He will never conjoin truth with any form of falsehood or error. He is faithful to Himself, which is another way of saying that He is faithful to the truth. He keeps every promise.
And because the believer is connected as a son to the Father and as part of the bride to Christ, there is therefore never any appropriate mixture of truth and falsehood in the life of the believer.
This is also true because the first sin committed on earth was a lie. And that lie originated with Satan, who is the father of lies and deception. According to Christ in Jn. 8:39-45, to lie is to be associated with devilish activity. To cultivate a life of deceitfulness is to speak of a relationship with the devil as father and not of God as Father. To lie is to perpetuate activity which is not only unbecoming of our fellowship with Christ, it is to perpetuate activity which suggests fellowship with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
There is no such thing as a small, white lie. Every lie is large (condemning us before God as sinners) and black (unholy). There is no falsehood which is minor and miniscule. Every lie in the believer is sinful and sorrowful.
So why do we lie? Why do we perpetuate falsehood? Why do we engage in deception?
There are several suggestions in Scripture, but let me draw your attention to two reasons. We lie because we do not trust God. We find ourselves in some circumstance in which we presume that He is untrustworthy to resolve a problem to our benefit. We believe that lying is a more effective means of controlling the circumstance so we might escape unharmed. So we attempt to gain sovereignty over the situation with our lies. One example comes readily to mind. In Genesis 20, Abraham lied about his relationship with Sarah, asserting that she was his sister and not his wife. Why? “Because,” Abraham said, “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife” (20:11). In other words, Abraham believed that God was untrustworthy to keep Abraham alive. Abraham believed that lying would be a means of controlling (being “sovereign”) over his circumstances in a way that would be more wise and trustworthy than God’s sovereignty.
Abraham’s thinking was no different than our own when we lie. We lie from a fear that something will happen to us that is “bad,” and assume that our perspective and actions are wiser than God’s. So we lie to attempt to achieve our own purposes.
And a second related reason that we lie is that we desire something more than we desire God. We desire to be freed from or avoid some pain. We desire an accumulation of wealth. We desire a conflict-free relationship. We lie because we want something — and whatever it is that we want at that moment is an idol that has usurped the position of God in our lives. We have cultivated a desire for a treasure that is not God. An example might be Peter who lied three times about his relationship with Christ (Mt. 26:69-75). Why? He treasured something in that moment that wasn’t Christ. He treasured comfort and ease or he treasured freedom from pain and suffering or he treasured the acclaim and affirmation of man, but at that moment what he did not treasure was fellowship with Christ.
So it is when we lie. We have a yearning for something that is not Christ. We want a treasure and the treasure’s name is not “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Do you want to know why you lie at specific moments and times? Answer the question, “what do I really want in this deception — what am I longing for more than Christ?” and you will know what you idolize and worship more than you worship Christ.
There is no place for lying in the life of the believer because there is no place for lying in God and because only God is worthy of worship. And lying bespeaks of a worship of something or someone other than God.
Words of Grace 