Lies Women Believe Week 3
This week, we are talking about Lies We Believe About Sin and Our Priorities. If you missed last week, we talked about Lies We Believe About Ourselves. This series is based on the book “Lies Women Believe” if you’d like to do a deeper study on the topic.
The enemy of our souls tries to convince us that God is not who He says He is and that sin is not what He says it is. He paints a picture that diminishes the goodness of God as well as the sinfulness of sin. He slaps a filter on it. Here are the lies we believe about sin:
1. “I can sin and get away with it”
The Truth is the choices I make today will have consequences. I will reap what I sow. But the serpent told Eve a lie about sin.
“You will not surely die.” Genesis 3:4
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” Galatians 6:7-8
Not only did Satan deceive Eve and say “you won’t really die” he convinced her there were some terrific benefits if she would eat the fruit.
“God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Gen 3:5
2. “My sin isn’t really that bad.”
The truth is that sin is an act of rebellion against God. I have two rowdy little boys at my house with sticky hands and dirty feet. Sometimes when my walls get banged up, I try touching up the paint. You know what I’ve found though? There’s a difference in clean paint and faded/stained walls. We can’t compare a life stained with unrepentant sinful actions with the life God has for us.
“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” - 1 John 1:5-10
“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, revellings, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21 NKJV
3. “God can’t forgive what I’ve done.”
It is very difficult for some of us to feel forgiven. There’s a feeling that I have to earn my way into good graces or to make up for what I’ve done wrong but the Truth is that the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cover any and every sin I have committed.
“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” - 1 John 1:7
There is no sin too great for God to forgive.
The Truth about both the lie “My sin isn’t really that bad” and “God can’t forgive what I’ve done” is revealed at Calvary. Psalm 85:10 gives us a beautiful description of the Lord Jesus and what He did for us on the cross
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” - Psalms 85:10
4. “It’s not my fault”
When God comes to Adam and Eve after they’ve eat the fruit, He asks them each individually, “what have you done?” Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. Technically, they’re both correct. But they’re sidestepping God’s question and diminishing their responsibility. The truth is that God does not hold me accountable for the actions of others.
“ And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:11-13
I am responsible for my own choices. Regardless of what influenced Adam and Eve, the choice was still theirs.
5. “I can’t live in consistent victory over sin.”
More than half of the women surveyed believed this lie. The Bible talks about the flesh (our human inclinations) warring against the Spirit living within us. What we feed gets more strength. It’s possible to be saved and to continually make “habit” choices that are sinful. Then we feel a tug of war with “trying” and guilt or worse, shame. We’ve bought into the lie that we can’t walk in victory.
The truth is if I am a child of God, I don’t have to sin. What we believe determines the way we live. If we believe we are going to sin, then we will. Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? There’s nothing spiritual about it per se. The idea is that whatever you think about yourself, you will believe and then you will act accordingly.
For a long time, I’ve had a goal to read the Bible all the way through in a calendar year. I didn’t really have an effective plan to accomplish it, and inevitably when I would miss a few days, I would tell myself, “You always do this. You are never going to accomplish this goal.”
The interesting thing about the goal was that I was still doing a good thing - spending time in the Word with the Lord. But I was allowing my self-fulfilling prophecy to zap any benefit because of who I was believe I was. “I never keep this.” The truth was, I sometimes keep this. Now, my self-fulfilling prophecy is that I spend time in the Bible every day. And do you know what? I’m on track to read the entire Bible chronologically this year!
What lies are you telling yourself about who you are that is keeping you stuck in your sin or keeping you weighed down from what God has for you? Maybe try saying, “I am a good mother/wife/woman and I live a life that is pleasing to God, etc.” instead of “I’m always tired and will never be “caught up”, I can’t focus on reading the Bible every single day, etc.”
Did you know that you are not a slave to sin? Through Christ you have been set free from sin!
“knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” - Romans 6:6-7
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” - Galations 5:1
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” - John 15:5
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor [a]homosexuals, nor [b]sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were [c]sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
LIES ABOUT PRIORITIES
We’ve already explored the three most fundamental and universal areas of deception that trip women up: what we believe about God, what we believe about ourselves, and what we believe about sin.
If we are deceived in these areas, there’s a greater chance that we will be deceived in other areas (trickle-down effect). The next few weeks we will be examining several practical areas where we are vulnerable to deception. This week, we are exploring Lies We Believe About Priorities:
I don’t have time to do everything I’m supposed to do.”
This was the most widely believed lie by a long shot. The average woman has modern time-saving devices (washing machine, dishwasher, running water, vacuum cleaners, microwave, etc) equivalent to fifty full-time servants. So why are we more hurried than ever?There are a lot of reasons I’m sure but maybe one of the biggest is that we’ve accepted the lie that we don’t have time to do everything we are supposed to do. Jesus was alive just 33 years and ministered for only about 3 years and yet in John 17:4 He says, “I have finished the work which You have given me to do.”
The truth is that I have time for everything that God has for me to do. This is not to say that you have time to do every responsibility that you, your kids, your boss, your husband and friends put on you. What God has for me today is different than what he had for me when I had young kids and will be different when I’m an empty nester, etc.
Some of us also buy into the lie that, “I’ve got this. I can do it all.” Or maybe, “I don’t have a choice, I have to do it all.” Women who believe they are supposed to be able to “do it all” flawlessly – to meet everyone’s demands and expectations – are likely to end up exhausted and overwhelmed by all the demands on their time.
When you’re tempted to ask someone “How do you do it all?” the answer is always – she doesn’t. Someone else is helping and/or something is dropping.
Freedom, joy, and fruitfulness come from seeking to determine God’s priorities for each season of life and then setting out to fulfill those priorities in the power of His Spirit, realizing that He has provided the necessary time and ability to do everything the HE has called us to do.
You will feel totally different resting in this truth. This is where your confidence comes from. Dropping other people’s expectations and leaning into His.
2. “I can thrive without consistent time in the Word and prayer.”
This is a lie that not many of us would say with our lips, but that half of the women admitted to living as if this is what they believed. The enemy doesn’t care if we love God, have scriptures memorized, or even if our schedule is full of church activities as long as he can get us to run on our steam rather than living in reliance upon God.
If we get trapped in this lie, we will do a lot of things “for God” without seeking the will of God through His Word and prayer, we might stir up a lot of religious dust but we won’t do Satan’s kingdom any real damage. If we rely on our own thoughts and ideas instead of God’s, the enemy knows we will eventually get sucked into his destructive ways.
King David, as ruler of Israel penned the words in Psalm 27:4, “One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple.”
Our priorities speak to our relationship or view of God.
Too often, my priorities show the pride of a self-sufficient spirit. James 4:6 says, “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” So, if I walk in pride, I must be prepared for God to oppose me and my efforts. On the other hand, if I’m humbled, I can be confident of His grace. If I acknowledge my need for Him, I can count on His divine intervention in my circumstances.
“It’s hard to trust someone you’re not in relationship with.” I’m not sure who to credit this idea or quote to but when I heard it, it struck me to my core. I would never ask a stranger at the gas station to hold my purse while I use the restroom. But I wouldn’t think twice about asking my husband or friend to do it. When we don’t have a relationship with God, and know Him to be who He says he is, we have a hard time trusting Him.
3. “My work at home is not as significant as the work other activities I do outside the home.” “I love my husband. I love my children. But at the end of the day, I just have nothing left to give them. By the time I work all day, take dinner to my aging parents, and shuttle the kids to soccer/band/piano practice, I’m spent. Night after night we end up grabbing dinner at the drive-through and eating it on the couch while we watch mindless TV. I want to invest more in my family, I just don’t know how!” (quoted from “Lies Women Believe”)
The modern pace and expectation of life has left little more than a “drop zone” of the home. And there’s a cultural lie that someone being a “keeper of your home” is insignificant at best and degrading at worst.
Oh, the struggle.
This is a lie I have personally hit head on. In fact I have the sign to prove it. Hanging in my office is a sign that says, “The most important work you will do in life is in the walls of your own home.” I was so deceived into thinking that there was more important work to do all around me, meanwhile, my own household needed me more than any job or ministry ever could. And do you know what happened when I spoke truth over my life? Every area of my life got better.
I talked about this in my message on Mother’s Day but the truth to this lie is found in Titus 2 where a church plant in Crazy Town was struggling and Paul helps new pastor, Titus, by telling him to help the women by reminding them that their faith must be evident in their homes and what happens OUTSIDE of the church.
Daily life behind the four walls of our homes reveals the fruit of lies as nothing else will
Love, self-control, purity, kindness, submission – Titus 2 says that Christian women should excel in these qualities – not the least of all in their homes. In verse 5 he talks about “working at home” so what should we do with that?
He’s not saying that women should only work at home or work their fingers to the bone. He’s not suggesting that we are solely responsible for everything in the home. Don’t forget, Adam was commanded to “work and keep” the first couple’s home in Gen 2:15. It’s appropriate and good for husbands and children to share the load of caring for a home.
He is not prohibiting women from working outside the home. In 1 Timothy 5:9-10 Paul places emphasis on a widow’s good deeds to those outside her family. He is not forbidding women from being compensated financially for such good work. Lydia was a “seller of purple goods” and a “worshiper of God” (Acts 16:14). Priscilla ran a tent making operation with her husband (Acts 18:1-3) and blessed Paul’s ministry. Nor is he is not implying that women have no place in the public sphere.
So what DOES he mean? Our homes matter. We cannot separate our home life from our Christian life. Christian homes are vital to furthering the Kingdom of God. Our marriages, our children, and our interactions with guests and neighbors all tell the Gospel story! God sees everything and doesn’t miss a single kind word spoken, boo boo kissed, meal prepared, dish washed or relationship restored. He weaves even the “small” things for His glory.
If things aren’t well at home, every other area of life is affected. And women are the thermostat of the home’s environment. We must be confident in what HE is calling us to do, and drop the lies and expectations of others.