“For the ways of a man are before the Lord, and He ponders all his goings.” (Prov. 5:21) Honesty is the best policy. I do not believe that you will find these exact words in the Scriptures but scattered throughout the Word of God is this concept, that we are to be honest in all our ways. A near impossibility, for what others think of us, either in who we are or who we were, is not always in line with the truth of that which we present to them or would necessarily want to.
Everything that we have done, said or thought the Bible tells us has been recorded, “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.” (Matt. 12:36) “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be made known and come abroad.” (Luke 8:17) Our difficulty seems to be in response to these verses, we tend to forget, and though we may understand that God does not, at times we tend to believe that what we have said or done when done in dishonesty was not really that big of deal, that God overlooks these minor misrepresentations of the truth.
The world calls these “little white lies,” a minor deception with no harm intended, just a little bending of the truth. I believe that our Lord sees them, to use the same type of analogies, as large dark lies, and not in any way representative of what His children should attain to be. These “half-truths” cause a separation to come between us and our Lord and can cause if left unattended a reason for a break in fellowship with Him. Honesty is not only the best policy it is the path of the Christian, and wise discernment must travel with it.
Allow me to use my own analogy here. My beautiful wife was not saved when we met, but by the grace of God she has been for quite some time now and is growing daily into a fine God-fearing lady. She is employed at a place that goes through literally thousands of rubber bands a year, so many that this company orders them by the case. We ran out of rubber bands at our house one day, something that I mentioned to her that morning, thinking that we would pick up a small bag of them from the store that weekend. When I came back home after work that day though there were several dozen rubber-bands on the counter. Now please remember, my wife at this time was not saved, so explaining the spiritual implications of this was difficult to say the least not only for me to explain properly, but impossible for her to understand, for “The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1st Cor. 2:14)
“Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” (2nd Cor. 8:21) Now, you may say in everything? Even when all I’m doing is talking to my buddies about that fish I caught, stretching it by just a couple of inches, what harm can that do. How about my weight when I’m talking to my girl friends at work, that can’t make any difference to God, can it? What possible difference could it make to the Lord if I shave a couple of seconds off of the time I ran the mile in high school, how much I know about a particular subject, how much time I spend studying my Bible, what I look at on the internet. There are just some things that we do not want people to know about us, and others that we want all to know, whether they are true or not is immaterial. We do not want to look bad, and we want to look better than we are.
There are two in the entire world that know the truth about everything that you are, you and God. To stretch the truth or embellish a story is to invite the sin of pride to enter your life, for in doing so you are seeking the praise of men. The opposite of honesty is not lying, my friends, it is fear, fear that we will not be seen as we desire to be seen by those, who if truth be told, could probably care less. By default you have invited, in some circumstances, jealousy to form in the minds of those that you have not been honest with, and jealousy breeds envy and hatred. At the least what we are hoping for when we are not honest with either ourselves or others is to not be seen as we truly are.
There are times that we are not honest because of the possible consequences of our actions. These are the sins that we try to hide from others, sometimes for our entire lives, for if they knew about these things from our past, they may look at us differently, may no longer like us, may even stop loving us. I know that this can be extremely draining, trying to hide something from those that we love the most for years, even decades. But you must know this, that your sins will find you out, (Num. 32:23) what you believe you can hide from others rest assured that you cannot hide them from God.
Within the first three days of meeting my lovely wife to be, I had told her many of the things of who I used to be, some of the most evil and atrocious acts that I had committed, both before coming to Christ and after, for the saved sin also, my friends. She had to know all of this, all that she asked I answered, and to this day any and all questions she desires to know of me she has more than earned the right to ask. I have purposed since our very first meeting to always be honest in all things, never to lie to her, for how else can two become one? (Eph. 5:31)
How much of who you were before Christ does your spouse, your brothers an sisters in Christ need to know about you, how many of the hidden sins that you are carrying today should they be trusted with to help you carry and finally release that burden you are trying to carry alone? If you are not going to be honest with our Lord about these things, why would you inform your most loved ones here about them. Honesty is very scary, my friends, it says I love you enough to trust you with the deepest faults within myself that I know. Honesty means I love you.
Does not God know and see all? Nothing is hidden from Him, “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Heb. 4:13) Start with Christ, start with the one you know loves you above all that any other ever could, start being open and honest with Him and He will direct you from there. You can trust Him, He already knows the truth about you, all of it.
Whether it is in your business dealings, your place of work, at home with your family and friends, honesty is not just the best policy, it is the walk of a true Christian. He cares only what people think about him because he is an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ, a child of God Almighty. If we are not honest with them, what will they think our Father in heaven is. Act accordingly my friends, it may bring embarrassment, shame, and grief to you, but your Father is looking at you in love at all times, and He will greatly reward you, for in truth and in love you stand firm for Him and His truths.