You are lied to on a regular basis. Every day you are lied to. Quite possibly, every hour. Sometimes, it might be every minute.
I can say that for certain without knowing anything about your life. Even if you were stranded on an island on your own, I could still say that for certain. You are lied to even when no one else is around.
How can I be so sure? Because you, like me, like every one of us, are lied to by your desires.
In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul calls the Christians to whom he is writing – and by extension all Christians – not to live like those who aren’t followers of Jesus – those who are far from God, with minds darkened and hearts hardened (Ephesians 4:17-18). Instead, as Christians we are to put off our old self, be renewed in our minds, and put on the new self (Ephesians 4:20-24).
Our desires, disrupted and distorted as they are by sin, lie to us.
In this passage, Paul tells us something really important about the desires that are part of our old self: they are deceitful (Ephesians 4:22). Our desires, disrupted and distorted as they are by sin, lie to us. That’s why I can be sure you are lied to on a regular basis, even when you are on your own.
These desires are part of our old self, the self we are to put off, but that doesn’t mean that we will ever experience total freedom from them in this lifetime. Paul doesn’t say that our old self is no longer there; he says we have to be deliberate about putting it off. Our old self, with its deceitful desires, is still there while we live in this age, therefore we have to be proactive about not listening to the lies those desires tell us.
Paul makes a similar point in Romans 6. There he tells us that as those who have been baptised into Christ, we have been baptised into his death, and by dying with him we have died to sin (Romans 6:1-7). The power and control sin once had over us is broken. No longer are we slaves to sin; we are now slaves to righteousness and to God himself (Romans 6:19, 22). And yet here too, Paul recognises that sinful desires are still a reality of human life in this age (Romans 6:12).
Jesus seems to imply the same. When talking about the sin of lust, the pastoral counsel Jesus gives isn’t to seek or expect sinful desires to be removed in this lifetime (Matthew 5:27-28). Rather he calls us to take radical, practical steps to stop ourselves from giving in to the temptation our desires bring to us (Matthew 5:29-30). If Jesus’s expectation was that Christians can experience total freedom from sinful desires in this lifetime, he wouldn’t have called us to a radical practical response when temptation comes; he would have called us to seek the eradication of those desires.
For every person who lives in this present age, it is an unavoidable reality that we will experience deceitful desires. They promise fulfilment, satisfaction, and true life if we’ll go their way. But they are lying to us, like a berry that looks delicious and nutritious but if ingested is actually deadly poisonous.
Our desires are not the arbiter of truth – God is. Our desires do not know what’s best for us – God does.
This is really helpful to know. Sometimes our desires shout loudly. Their lies can feel convincing. What they are offering is deeply attractive. Everything in us wants to believe they are telling the truth. But Scripture tells us that they may not be. Our desires are not the arbiter of truth – God is. Our desires do not know what’s best for us – God does. That’s why when desires come, we take them to God’s word, we see what he says about them, and then we decide how to act in light of that. That’s what it looks like ‘to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self’ (Ephesians 4:22-23).
When I experience sexual desire towards a man, those desires tell me that sex with that man, whether in action or just in my mind, will bring me pleasure and satisfaction. They tell me that sex with him would meet my longings to be known and loved and to connect with another on a deep level. But when I take those desires to Scripture, I see the reality: they are lying to me. Though they promise so much, they will never deliver. And as I choose to follow God’s word rather than my desires, I find that it is God, not my desires, that truly has my best interests at heart.
You are lied to all the time. But when you know that, you can do something about it. You can’t avoid always hearing those lies, but you can choose not to believe them.
