A wise parent understands that the natural consequences of lying can be powerful,
God-given teachers. Lying often brings
with it embarrassment, loss of trust, rifts
in relationships, unexpected calamity, and
a sense of shame. Parents who respond
with wisdom rather than wrath and show
compassion rather than shame are often
met with a more receptive heart. Righteous
discipline seeks not to condemn, but to
help and to heal. Children who lie habitually need consistent, loving discipline along
with the natural consequences of lying.
In conjunction with consistent, loving discipline and natural consequences,
we have been given an effective Biblical
training program to help us overcome
lying. The third chapter of Colossians
serves as a training ground that will enable us to overcome lying and other besetting sins. This training program even
comes with a list of practical applications
and testing procedures to follow:
Phase I—Change of Affection
Colossians 3:2: “Set your affection on
things above, not on things on the earth.”
The Apostle Paul teaches that we are
to redirect our interests. To cultivate new
affections in the heart of a child, an ef-
fective strategy is to surround him with
Godly individuals whom he admires and
seeks to emulate. Continually expose
him to characters who live virtuously in
the face of opposition and who choose
to do right because it is right to do right.
They make virtue an attractive attribute.
Righteous discipline
seeks not to
condemn, but to
help and to heal.
While the easiest response to a lying
child is to react with harshness and anger,
a wise parent will be proactive—that is,
acting with positive initiatives rather than
reacting to negative behavior. Accord-
ing to Fenelon, “. . . If you should have
reduced them by authority to observe all
your rules, you would not have gained
your end; every thing would become re-
strained formality, and perhaps hypoc-
risy. Instead of instilling a love for virtue
and knowledge, you will on the contrary
give them a general distaste and disgust
for both and lose the love of which you
should alone seek to inspire them.”
Phase II—Change in Practice
Colossians 3:8–15: “But now ye also put
off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that
ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
and have put on the new man, which is
renewed in knowledge after the image of
him that created him . . . . Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved,
bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of
mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing
one another, and forgiving one another,
if any man have a quarrel against any:
even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
And above all these things put on charity,
which is the bond of perfectness. And let
the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the
which also ye are called in one body; and
be ye thankful.”
As we redirect our thoughts, we must
take off the old and put on the new. In the
Greek, it is like removing a filthy shirt from
your body and putting on a clean one. It is
time to change! Children will relate to this
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