Ephesians 4:25 ESV
“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
Truth and Lies
In the previous few verses we are taught that the truth that
is in Christ Jesus is that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, are to put off our
old self, which belongs to our former manner of life and is corrupt through
deceitful desires, and that we are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds,
and that we are to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in
true righteousness and holiness.
And the falsehood that we are to put off is the notion that
we can believe in Jesus Christ and still live like the ungodly. It is the
notion that we who believe in Jesus, since we have been saved by God’s grace,
can continue to live in sin, and that we can give ourselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity. And it is that we don’t have to put
off our old self which belongs to our former manner of life of living in sin
and for self.
Many people professing faith in Jesus Christ in America
today are living in the lie, not in the truth. They say that because they
believed in Jesus Christ that their sins are now gone, that they have all been
forgiven, even their future sins. And they believe that heaven is now their
eternal destiny. But they didn’t actually put the flesh to death. It is still
alive and thriving. It never went away. Sin is still reigning in their lives.
And then there is the professer of faith in Jesus Christ who
is living in sinful addiction who keeps promising that he intends to rid his
life of the addiction, but since he is trying to do this in his own flesh, it
never truly happens, because flesh gives birth to flesh. Flesh doesn’t put
flesh to death. We can’t rid our lives of the flesh by the flesh. Only by the
Spirit of God can we be set free of sin, but only as we yield control of our
lives over to the Lord.
Sin does not just go away on its own. Yes, Jesus Christ
became sin for us on that cross so that when he died our sins died with him.
But not everyone is saved from his sins. Yes, we have to believe in Jesus, but
belief is not just an acknowledgment of who Jesus is and of what he did for us,
and it is not just a profession of faith or a verbal confession of Christ as
Lord. Our faith is from God and so faith surrenders to Christ as Lord and
repents of sin and turns to God to follow Jesus Christ in obedience to his
ways.
And so some people, wanting to impress others that they have
forsaken their lives of sin to follow Jesus in obedience will actually fake it.
They will even fake tears of repentance, but it is all still flesh. For nothing
changes. The heart is still the same, still bent toward the same mindset, the
same attitudes, and the same behaviors. And the sin cycle still continues
without a burp. It is all a performance to appear righteous, but the addicted
to sin is still living in self-indulgence, still straying, still meandering.
A Lie is a Lie
So, whether you believe the lie that you can believe in
Jesus and still live like the ungodly, or if you believe the lie that says you
don’t have to die to sin (repent) and that you don’t have to walk in obedience
to the Lord, or that Jesus does it all and you do nothing, and so your sins are
gone, even though you may still be living in sin; or if you tell lies that say
that you have put the flesh to death, but it is still thriving, or that you
plan to put the flesh to death, and so you fake that you have, they are all
lies.
And, as followers of Jesus Christ we are to put away all lies,
whether they are lies we are believing and living or whether they are lies we
are telling other people, or whether they are verbal lies or not, for even
withholding the truth from those it is required or necessary that we tell the
truth to is a lie, for it is a deliberate deception. And fakery is a lie. Giving
a false impression is a lie. Closing your ears and refusing to hear the truth
is believing a lie.
And not only are we to put away lies we are believing or
living or telling others but we are now to be truth tellers. And we are to be
those who are living and believing the truth and not the lies. And the only way
we are going to know the truth is if we are studying the Scriptures in their
context prayerfully with a desire to know and to believe and to live the truth.
And we have to test what we are hearing coming from other humans.
And then we have to be those who are walking in obedience to
the truth, by the Spirit and who are not reverting to the lies. We must be
people of integrity and not people who shift back and forth between truth and
lies. We need to be what we say we are, and we must live what we say we
believe. And especially with regard to the family of God we are to be truthful
in our words and in our conduct, for we are members one of another.
[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn
15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1
Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:21-25; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23; Gal
5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal
6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Heb
10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Rev. 2-3; Rev
18:1-6; Rev 21:8, 27; Rev 22:14-15]
For
Our Nation
An
Original Work / September 11, 2012
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: we’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
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