Eighty percent (80%) of airplane accidents are due to human error. Pilots cause many crashes by ignoring warning alarms, even switching them off. Studies show pilots have become disoriented in fog or clouds and stopped trusting their instruments. They think their compass has malfunctioned pointing them in the wrong direction, or their Turn Coordinator indicated the plane was tilted but the pilot felt like it was level. Multiple crashes happen because they refuse to accept the low altitude the altimeter is showing. They follow their impulses only to crash into the ground or the side of a mountain. Pilots can reach the point they convince themselves all their equipment is providing false readings. In other words, they are saying the instruments are lying. So instead, they rely on their confused impulses, which lead to a crash.
Think of the countless lives that would have been spared through the years if those pilots had just believed what the instruments were telling them. Recently, while watching a documentary on aviation disasters, I thought about how similar scenarios happen in the spiritual realm when people doubt what God has said. How much better would the world be if people believed the instructions God has given? Someone defined faith as merely ‘taking God at His Word’. Doubters don’t normally put it in these terms, but when someone refuses to believe God’s word—why? Does that suggest they think God is lying?
That is the method Satan used with Adam and Eve. The Serpent asked the woman, “Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’” (Gen 3:1 NET)? “Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (vs 4, 5). Satan was creating doubt in God’s instructions. Behind his smooth words, he was telling them that God had lied to them. The devil still employs this tactic today. Scripture repeatedly warns people to beware of deception. The word means that something, a person, false teaching, or emotion is causing believers to doubt God and be led away from His truth. Jesus gave strong warnings about the increase of deception in the last days. Jesus warns His disciples, “False Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matt 24:24).
The truth we must rest in, “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18).So the strength for us in a confusing world starts with believing our instruments—the instrument of the Word and the instrument of the Holy Spirit. Ask yourself what are some teachings of the Bible that you have doubts about or simply don’t believe? And then consider if there are reasons you don’t believe? Keep in mind that believing is more than a passive feeling that something is true. Genuine belief drives us into action. Finally, ask the Holy Spirit to help you believe what you don’t understand.
People have attempted to count the number of promises God made to man in the Bible. Some concluded as high as 30,000. In 1956, a schoolteacher, Everett R. Storms, conducted a detailed and careful count. It took him a year and a half to read the Bible twenty-seven times marking the promises, and he counted 7,487 promises God made to man. Every promise is true and will continue to be true throughout eternity. In the hope of eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (Tit 1:2). Why would God make untrue promises or tell a lie?
One common example of believing what God has said, instead of the lies others tell us, concerns self-esteem. It surprised me to learn that 85% of people suffer from low self-esteem. If you are among them, on who or what are you basing your self-image—other people’s opinion, your outside appearance, your possessions, your intelligence, etc. Maybe your parents constantly put you down. The first step to freedom is to base your self-image on who you are in Christ. You are not an accident of nature. God created you unique, one of a kind, with a purpose. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Eph 2:10). Tell yourself these truths: In Him, I have been made complete (Col 2:10); I am forgiven of the penalty of my sins (2 Cor 5:19); I am a child of God (John 1:12); I am set free by the truth (John 8:31-33); I am inseparable from the love of God (Rom 8:35). I read over a hundred more scriptures like these.
During times of trouble, do you believe, God will supply all your needs (Phil 4:19); do you believe you can cast all your care because He cares for you (1Pe 5:7); do you believe the words of Jesus, do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself (Matt 6:34)? If you don’t believe it, why? Why would God make these promises if they aren’t true? Is He lying to us?
Sustaining Word for the Week: “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18). God’s truth about Satan . . . there is no truth in him . . . because he is a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44 HOL).