In a sinful world that's under the influence of the father of lies, we should not be surprised to see all sorts of deceitful and lying tactics being used against us. We should not be surprised at the fact that anyone can lie to us, straight to our faces, at any given time.
That said, how do we respond when we find out we are being deceived? How do we deal with the fact that there are people whom we trusted, yet have lied to us? And yes, how do we respond when the deceiver is a fellow Christian?
We've got to respond with grace.
Grace that empowers
Many people think of "grace" as some sort of ability to be passive. What I mean is, when people think "gracious Christians," we think of the kind who just allow anybody to deceive them and manipulate them, and then forgive and forget the offense. This is wrong.
Grace, in its simplest definition, is God giving us the goodness we don't deserve. He saw our sinfulness and our wickedness, yet He loved us so much and gave His one and only Son for us to be saved, through believing. We didn't deserve God's love, but He loved us anyway. That's grace.
When I speak of Christians being gracious to people caught lying, that's what I mean: we know the offender is a liar, but we do them good just the same, hoping to bring them to the Lord. We don't deny the fact that they did us wrong, but because God loves them we hope and pray for their salvation.
That's grace. God's grace empowers us to say "no" to sin and do what we normally can't do – love people.
That said, here are three ways to graciously deal with liars and deceivers, even in the church.
1) Pray for them
Lastly, we should keep praying for them. God knows how to deal with them, and in fact, He can deal with them before we even try to talk to them to address the issue.
Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think," and so we should ask His help in dealing with the manipulative people around us. He loves them, and wants them freed from bondage to sin.
2) Confront the liar with truth
Next, we lovingly confront the lie with the truth. Lies can only be dispelled with the truth. When we confront the liar with the truth, he can then be given the opportunity to admit the lie and repent of it.
Follow the Matthew 18:15-17 way of dealing with a sinning brother in the church: personally talk to him alone; if he doesn't listen, bring a witness; if he still doesn't listen, bring the matter to the church; if he still doesn't listen, just let him be a stranger to you.
Keep in mind that the motivation for this is to bring a sinning brother to the Lord through repentance, so that he may be restored.
3) Ignore their lies and accusations
Lastly, by the enabling grace and confidence that God gives, we should ignore the lies. I am not saying we should just allow anybody to slander us. What I am saying is we should not let the lies and accusations shake us.
If there's nothing to hide, there's nothing to fear anyway. If we have a clear conscience before the Lord, then we're good. Let us not take revenge against the liar, rather, let us do what pleases the Lord. He is our vindicator (see Romans 12:19; Psalm 4:1-4)
God is able to do more than what we ask of Him, so let's trust Him.
