lies.

So, I'm reading a book called "Lies Young Women Belive." In this book, Dannah Gresh and Nancy Leigh DeMoss discuss how Satan destroys our walk with God by telling us a series of lies. The following is the basic points I got from the first few chapters. I highly reccomend the book, even though I'm only on chapter 4.

Satan has a goal- to kill and destroy us.

I'm not meaning physically, I mean spiritually. He wants us to die spiritually and become separated from God, who is our life. To do so, he tells us a series of lies. We are "not good enough" or " not beautiful enough". We aren't worth it. All of these lies are meant to destroy us. When we hear them, we should run, far far away. By listening to and dwelling on these lies, we begin to believe them. When we believe them, we begin to act on them an they become a pattern in our lives. Instead we should immerse ourselves in the truth.
Truth is not just "something that is not a lie." Because a lie then is simply "something that is not the truth". The problem with this is circular reasoning. There is no standard to judge against. A better definition is that truth is "an agreement with a standard or individual" (thank you dictionary.com!!) The standard for this truth is Jesus Christ. Jesus says in John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life". He is the standard, he determines what is right.
By surrounding ourselves in the truth, we can find verses to counteract the lies that Satan tells us. Jesus promises that if we know the truthm the "truth will set us free" (John 8:32). The way we live our lives now establishes the pattern we will live our lives in the future. It sets the bar for our standards.
Elizabeth Elliot says in her book, Passion and Purity, "He gives all. He asks all." Jesus gave everything for us. He wants all of us. Why would he tell us these lies? Its clearly Satan at work to destroy us. God only tells us things that are good, things that are lovely, things that are pure. In Christ and his Word, we have the truth that sets people free. But, because we listen to Satan, we belive these terrible lies and we think that we are not good enough, we are too bad to be forgiven. Stasi Eldredge says in Captivating, "We are afraid of being truly seen, and so we hide our truest selves and offer only what we belive is wanted." We all want to be beautiful, but seem to belive that we are not enough. We are not worthy of love. But, these thoughts are not of God. They are lies from Satan to destroy us. God wants us, in all of our brokeness to come back to him, pleading for forgiveness (which he will give), and give our lives back to him.
A missionary named Ruth Stull of Peru once said, "If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is beacuse pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will only satisfy a little lad." Come back to Jesus. He's calling.