Overcoming The Lie

During my service to our Lord as an evangelist, I have presented the gospel to many souls. Most people believed they already knew the truth. They had become comfortable in their beliefs and the gospel I presented was proving to be an irritant. Imagine being told a lie and believing all your life it was true. Many people have unknowingly added lies to their faith. A faith they have built their hope upon.

The Apostle Paul was such a person. Paul, who was also known as Saul according to Acts 13: 9, was born a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. (Phil. 3: 5) Taught by a well-known Jewish scholar named Gamaliel. (Acts 22: 3) He was a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. (Acts 23: 6) So comfortable was he in the beliefs established in his life he became a great persecutor of the church. (Acts 22: 4) He did all this with a clear conscience thinking he was serving God. (Acts 23: 1)

What he came to realize is that he had been taught lies. 1 Timothy 1: 13 states he persecuted the church ignorantly. From his youth he had been taught in a way that caused him not to recognize the Messiah. In Acts chapter 9, he hears the voice of the Great Physician. He even asks, “who are you, Lord?” Our Lord responds by saying he was Jesus the one he was persecuting. Paul must have known at that instance he had been taught a lie.

What can you do when you learn about the falsehoods you have believed? For many, that knowledge is too uncomfortable. They choose to remain grounded in the lie as they live in denial. (James 1: 22) One can understand the temptation they face. Will they leave the church they had grown so accustomed to in keeping with repentance? Their old friends and family might ostracize them for taking a stand against their lies. They fear they will be strangers in the Lord’s church. It is a very trying moment.

That very thing happened to the Apostle Paul. In Acts 26: 16 – 18, Paul tells King Agrippa what the Lord told him to do on the road to Damascus. Paul goes on to say he was not disobedient. Where was his internal struggle? How did he give up the lie so fast?

Simply put, Paul loved the truth more than the lie. (2 Thess. 2: 10) In recounting giving up the lie for the truth, Paul considered it trash. “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” (Phil. 3: 7 – 8)

What do you value more, the lie or the truth? Paul went on to live his life in service to our Lord. Knowing his time on earth was nearly over he wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” (2 Tim. 4: 7 – 8) If you want to give up the lie and love the truth as Paul did, this crown of righteousness awaits you.

JRD