The Lies We Love to Believe: Helping Parents and Teenagers Replace Lies With Truth
I’m told the best way to spot a fake dollar bill is by studying a real dollar bill. Counterfeit money in circulation is a big deal. It produces mistrust, causes great loss, and, if not checked, would result in a complete collapse of our financial system. Lies in circulation about God’s word are just as destructive. As parents, we are all too familiar with the lies our children are prone to believe about themselves. When they miss a goal, fail a test, or aren’t included in a group text, Satan begins to spin lies about their worth and purpose.
We need to help our children learn how to decipher truth from lies. In order to protect our children against the danger of lies, we must be dedicated to studying the truth of God’s Word and encourage our children to do likewise. Like with money, the better they know God’s Word, the better they will be able to spot any lies that contradict it.
When our children feel the weight of the world’s lies, we want to validate their very real feelings while also pointing them to what is true. Parents can help their children discern lies from truth by showing them what God’s Word says about who they image and what their purpose is.
Most every lie we believe stems from (1) whom we image and (2) what our purpose is. The world tells the lie that we should aspire to look like whatever we put our eyes and ambitions on. “Just be you! Unless ‘you’ is not who you want to be, then claim to be whomever you want.” The world also tells us that we should do whatever we want because we deserve whatever we want. But Scripture tells us the truth about our image and purpose: we are created in the very image of God and he gives us a royal responsibility…