Format your Heart!

“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices” Colossians 3:9 NASB

This particular behavior “not to lie” is insisted usually on children assuming that only children lie and we are free of it. The fact is We are all liars. Hold on, do not close the article immediately, I would want to bring the facts and research done by Pamea Meyer who is an American author, certified fraud examiner, and entrepreneur. Described by Readers Digest as “the nation’s best-known expert on lying”. You may watch her ted talk on lie spotting, the link is enclosed at the end of this article. 

Lying is a cooperative act. This is the truth number one. Think about it, a lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie. Sometimes we're willing participants in deception for the sake of social dignity, to maintain friendship and for various other reasons known to us alone.

Research:

On a given day, studies show that you may be lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times. Now granted, many of those are white lies. But in another study, it showed that strangers lied three times within the first 10 minutes of meeting each other. 

• We lie more to strangers than we lie to coworkers.
• Extroverts lie more than introverts.
• Men lie eight times more about themselves than they do with other people.
• Women lie more to protect other people.
• If you're an average married couple, you're going to lie to your spouse in one out of every 10 interactions.
• Now, you may think that's bad. If you're unmarried, that number drops to three.
• It is said more than three-quarters of lies go undetected

  Lying's complex: The truth number two about lying is it's woven into the fabric of our daily life and our business life. We are deeply ambivalent about the truth. We parse it out on an as-needed basis, sometimes for very good reasons, other times just because we don't understand the gaps in our lives. We are against lying, but we are covertly for it in ways that our society has sanctioned for centuries. It's as old as breathing. It's part of our culture, it's part of our history, and all the time part of our carnality.

 It's starts really, really early. How early? Well babies will fake a cry, wait to see who's coming and then go right back to crying.

• One-year-old's learn concealment.
• Two-year-old’s bluff.
• Five-year-old’s lie outright. They manipulate via flattery.
• Nine-year-old’s, masters of the cover-up.
• By the time you enter college, you're going to lie to your mom in one out of every five interactions.
• By the time we enter this work world and we are breadwinners, we enter a world that is just cluttered with spam, fake digital friends, partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, a deception epidemic -- in short, what one author calls a post-truth society. 

The common way to cover the lies is through rationalizing (rationing the lies) if we are spotted. John Ortberg quotes “We are driven by two primary motivations. One, we want to receive selfish gain. We want to avoid pain. We want it so much that we are willing to lie or cheat or deceive for it. We want what we want, and we’re willing to cheat to get it. Two, we want to be able to look in the mirror and think well of ourselves. That means we all want to view ourselves as basically good, honest, honorable people. Clearly these two motivations are in conflict with each other.”. Doesn’t it look scary? This can go rampant if we do not ask God to help us and then be cautious and sensitive when we utter every word. Psalmist cries in his prayer “Help O Lord for the godly man ceases to be, Faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak falsehood to one another, With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak.”. Psalms 12:2-3. Lying mouth reflects the status of your heart. Jesus said in Matthew 5:37 “But let your statement be ‘Yes, Yes” or ‘No, No’; anything beyond these is of evil.”. NASB. Can we be conscious to work  in this area?

Blessings,

David Raj.

Recommended link: https://youtu.be/P_6vDLq64gE