The Bible teaches us that Satan is the “father of lies.” When discussing His enemy and ours, Christ spoke at length about how Satan uses the same tactics of lies and manipulation that he has always used to try to derail and defeat us (John 8:44). Make no mistake about it, Satan is looking for opportunities to entrap you in his lies today. When you know some of his more common lies and the Scriptural truths that can combat them, you’re in a better position to stand freely in the truth of God’s Word.
It has been said that you can’t allow the truth to set you free until you can identify the lie that is holding you hostage. Within your spirit, there are two entities who are struggling for control. On one side of the divide, you have your Heavenly Father who speaks truth into your soul and wants to give you every good thing that He has to offer.
However, on the other side, Satan is constantly at work. While we know that we are physically protected from Him through the presence of the Holy Spirit, that doesn’t mean that he simply gives up and walks away. Instead, he operates under the principles of dishonesty.
Every word that Satan utters is a lie. In John 8:44, Jesus didn’t only call Satan a liar, but He also referred to him as the “father of lies.” That means that if you could trace every lie back to its origin, you would find Satan. In the third chapter of Genesis, Satan started lying. God had told Adam and Eve that they had free reign in the Garden of Eden.
However, there was one tree that they weren’t allowed to eat from. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil stood in the middle of the garden, and God knew that when Adam and Eve ate of that fruit, they would suffer the pain of knowing their own failures. He had put the rule in place to try to protect them from themselves.
Unfortunately, Eve was near the tree one day when Satan spoke. Having taken on the form of a serpent, Satan told Eve that God didn’t want them to eat of the fruit because doing so would allow them to become like him. This wasn’t exactly new territory for Satan. Before he took on his role as the enemy of every Christian and an enemy of God, he was an angel. In an act of rebellion, Satan made an attempt to overthrow Heaven and set himself up as the new god. In an act of deceit, he convinced 1/3 of the angels to buy into him. All of them were banished from Heaven, and their fate is written about in the Book of Revelation.
Satan was a liar before time as we know it started, and he was a liar in the Garden of Eden. If there’s one thing that we can rest assured of, it’s that Satan is a liar today. He may never try to get you to overthrow Heaven, and he probably won’t tempt you into eating the fruit from a certain tree. Instead, he will try to get you to believe lies about God and about yourself. When he does that, he can lure you into a perpetual state of captivity. Understanding the lies of Satan and the truth of God’s Word that can combat them can set you on the path to freedom.
Lie #1: You Don’t Need Accountability
James 5:16 (TPT)
Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another and then pray for one another to be instantly healed, for tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer!
One of the most dangerous lies that Satan tells God’s people is that we don’t need accountability or real relationships with other believers. If you have ever been betrayed by a friend or abandoned by a family member, you may have put up some walls between yourself and others in the name of self-preservation. That’s an understandable response to personal pain, but it’s not God’s design for His people.
In Luke 10:1, we read about Jesus sending out the first group of disciples to minister to the world. There were 70 of them, and instead of sending them out on 70 different missions, He put them in groups of two and sent them out in 35 groups. Did they cover less ground? Obviously. But they had accountability and a connection with another person.
Don’t believe the lie that you can live your Christian life on your own. Humans were created for connection with other people.
Lie #2: Don’t Get Mad, Get Even
Romans 12:19 (TPT)
Beloved, don’t be obsessed with taking revenge, but leave that to God’s righteous justice. For the scriptures say: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,” says the Lord.
We just discussed the pain associated with the betrayal of a friend, abandonment of a family member, and other painful moments that are an unfortunate part of the human experience. Even more unfortunately, our natural response to those times of pain is to seek revenge. One of the most dangerous lies that Satan tells people is that we shouldn’t get mad, we should get even.
The quest for revenge is a dangerous one that never provides any real closure. Instead, it leaves you constantly fighting the heaviness of bitterness while looking for an opportunity to strike back. This verse from Paul’s letter to the Roman Church teaches us that God will handle the retaliation for His children’s pain. Instead of looking for vengeance, adopt a new mantra. Get mad, don’t get even. Anger is a natural emotion, but we can put it in submission to the Holy Spirit. Revenge is an ungodly approach to any situation.
Lie #3: You Have No Worth
John 3:16 (TPT)
For this is how much God loved the world-he gave his one and only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience everlasting life.
Finally, Satan will do everything to convince you that you have little to no worth to anyone around you, or to God. That’s simply not true. When Satan tries to make you question your own self-worth, he has a variety of tactics that he will use. Most notably, he will try to get you to focus on your own personal failures.
All of us have some parts of our lives that we would erase if we could. If your life was on an old film reel, wouldn’t it be great if you could take a pair of scissors and cut out the bad parts? If your life was a novel, it would be wonderful if you could take some sort of whiteout and blot out the parts that you don’t want anyone to read. Not only would it allow you to keep people from knowing about those bad parts of your life, but it would also allow you to truly forget about those parts.
If you ever hear a voice telling you that you have no worth, please understand that it is a lie straight from the mouth of Satan. Your worth cannot be measured in the size of your home, the speed of your car, your degrees, your bank account, or any other tangible measure. Instead, your worth was determined thousands of years ago.
On the day that God made the decision to offer Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, your worth was eternally sealed. In that moment, God had a Son, but He wanted a family. He wanted you. Why? Because you are worth it!
A Closing Prayer:
Heavenly Father, help me to become so grounded in Your Word that I can quickly rebuff the lies that Satan would try to tell me about myself, my relationships with others, and every other topic that he is prone to lie about. In Christ’s name I ask these things, Amen.