Lies are a great strategy of the enemy to take us out of the game.  It’s simple.  If you hear a lie often enough you come to believe that it is true.  Once you believe that it is true, you will act in ways that seem to confirm the truth of the lie you have believed. Satan is a master at orchestrating such deceptions.

Let me give you a simple illustration.  A young woman is brought up in a home where she experiences a great deal of criticism and rejection.  On occasion she is told that she is worthless and that no one will ever want her.  She stores that lie up in her heart and comes to believe that she is unworthy of love and friendship.  She comes to believe that if anyone ever truly got to know her they would reject her. To avoid inevitable rejection she avoids relationships.   On the first day of school she arrives early and sits in the back where she won’t have to risk much interaction with others students who she believes will reject her just as her parents said. When students come in, she avoids eye contact and appears sullen. If they speak to her she makes little response. Her body language announces that she is not interested in striking up a conversation and so the new students honor her non-verbal sign that cries “Stay Away.”  At the end of the day no one has spoken to her and in some classes no one even sat next to her.  She leaves that day with her belief that she is unlovable and unworthy of friendship reinforced.  The lie she believed about her lack of worth and significance produced behaviors that reinforced the belief.  All she had to do was smile and be friendly to have a totally different experience.

Some lies are planted in our homes behind closed doors while others are planted by our culture through the media and our education system. Several years ago I had a young man whom I had never met come into my office.  I’ll call him Todd (not his name). He was the grown son of some members of the church where I was serving.  He introduced himself and quickly and got to the point.  He simply and bluntly asked me what the Bible had to say about homosexuality.  I read several passages to him from both the Old and New Testaments that clearly stated that a homosexual lifestyle was sin.  He looked devastated as I finished reading the passages.  I asked him why he came in.  He told me his story.  When he was eighteen he went off to college and shared a dorm room with another young man he had never met.  However, they soon became close friends and in their sophomore year left the dorm and shared an apartment.  Todd then told me how emotionally attached they became to one.  It was then than both of them gave into their feelings and began a homosexual relationship.  He felt a great deal of shame about it but couldn’t bring himself to break off the relationship.

As we visited, I asked him if he and his friend had been sexually attracted to one another in the early stages of the relationship.  Todd seemed to be shocked that I had even asked the question.  His answer was revealing.  “No! The thought of it was repulsive but because we felt so strongly about one another we knew we must be gay and so the sex just naturally followed.”  We continued to talk about the possibility that men and women could have deep friendships and emotional bonding without a sexual component to the relationship.  Scripture says that David and Jonathan had such a deep emotional bond that their “souls were knot together.”  Solomon said. “There is a friend who is closer than a brother.”  There is no suggestion that there was any sexual component to these friendships.  They were just best friends.

The cultural lie that Todd had bought into was that love and sex are equivalent.  Somehow we have lost the ability to separate the two – even among friends.  Fifty years ago boys had best friends with whom they shared their deepest fears and greatest hopes. Young girls did the same and even walked around in public places holding hands.  There was nothing sexual about the relationships.  The all grew up, got married, raised children and continued to stay in touch with best friends.  Now the lie is that if you feel emotionally drawn to anyone of the same sex you by definition are gay.  If you are gay then the relationship must become sexual.  That is simply a lie and our media and education system reinforce the lie.

We speak of homosexuality as if it is another gender – male / female / homosexual.  God did not create that category.  He simply made them male and female. I’m not saying that all homosexual relationships are friendships distorted by deception. There are other factors as work in many of those relationships. But I know many are deep friendships that have been redefined and distorted by our culture. Deep same-sex friendships without lust are very biblical and healthy.  Our cultural preoccupation with sex has all but stolen these godly friendships from us.  Those who are caught up in the gay lifestyle are afraid to walk away from it because they fear they are doomed to never have love in their lives.  But love and deep friendship can exist without lust and sex.  Deep emotional connection can occur between friends just as it can with family members.  This cultural lie has cost us on many fronts

Todd was astonished to discover that his relationship with his partner could have remained a “best friends” relationship without sex and without shame.  In that moment he realized that perhaps he wasn’t born with a genetic mandate to be gay. He thanked me for my time and walked out the door.  Two years later I was sitting alone at an airport in L.A. waiting on a connecting flight.  Out of the crowd Todd walked up to me with a young lady next to him.  He introduced me to his wife.  He said she knew everything about his past and that he still had some struggles related to his past  but they were working through all that.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” If truth sets us free then lies keep us in bondage.  Satan is the master of lies so we must be masters of truth. Scripture is our foundation and if anything is true, then it is God’s truth – whether it comes by scientific discovery or revelation.  It is all God’s truth and will not contradict God’s word.  Whether a lie is planted in our hearts by hurtful families or by cultural propaganda, it blinds us to who we are in Christ and the destiny and glory he has for each of us.  Paul told Timothy not to lay hands on any man quickly.  He meant that Timothy should not be too quick to give authority to a man he had not proven.  The same is true for cultural beliefs and assertions. Don’t be too quick to agree just because you keep hearing it stated over and over.  Weigh it against God’s word.  Do your homework.  Know the truth because knowing it will keep you free.  Be blessed today in God’s truth.