1. The Lie: God is not really good.
The Truth
- God is good, and everything He does is good.
- God never makes mistakes.
2. The Lie: God doesn’t love me.
The Truth
- God’s love for me is infinite and unconditional.
- I don’t have to perform to earn God’s love or favor.
- God always has my best interests at heart.
3. The Lie: God is just like my father.
The Truth
- God is exactly what He has revealed Himself to be in His Word.
- God is infinitely more wise and loving than any earthly father could ever be.
4. The Lie: God is not really enough.
The Truth
- God is enough. If I have Him, I have all I need.
5. The Lie: God’s ways are too restrictive.
The Truth
- God’s ways are best.
- God’s restrictions are always for my good.
- Resisting or rebelling against God’s ways brings conflict and heartache.
6. The Lie: God should fix my problems.
The Truth
- Life is hard.
- God is more concerned about glorifying Himself and changing me than about solving my problems.
- God has an eternal purpose He is fulfilling in the midst of my problems.
- God wants to use my problems as part of His sanctifying process in my life.
- No matter what problem I am facing, God’s grace is sufficient for me.
7. The Lie: I’m not worth anything.
The Truth
- My value is not determined by what others think of me or what I think of myself. My value is determined by how God views me.
- To God, my soul is worth more than the price of the whole world.
- If I am a child of God, I am God’s cherished possession and treasure.
8. The Lie: I need to learn to love myself.
The Truth
- By faith, I need to receive God’s love for me.
- I already love myself. I need to deny myself and let God love others through me.
9. The Lie: I can’t help the way I am.
The Truth
- If I am a child of God, I can choose to obey God.
- I am responsible for my own choices.
- I can be changed through the power of God’s Spirit.
10. The Lie: I have my rights.
The Truth
- Claiming rights will put me in bondage.
- Yielding rights will set me free.
11. The Lie: Physical beauty matters more than inner beauty.
The Truth
- At best, physical beauty is temporal and fleeting.
- The beauty that matters most to God is that of my inner spirit and character.
12. The Lie: I should not have to live with unfulfilled longings.
The Truth
- I will always have unfulfilled longings this side of heaven.
- The deepest longings of my heart cannot be filled by any created person or thing.
- If I will accept them, unfulfilled longings will increase my longing for God and for heaven.
13. The Lie: I can sin and get away with it.
The Truth
- The choices I make today will have consequences; I will reap what I sow.
- Sin’s pleasures only last for a season.
- Sin exacts a devastating toll. There are no exceptions.
- If I play with fire, I will get burned. I will not escape the consequences of my sin.
14. The Lie: My sin isn’t really that bad.
The Truth
- Every act of sin is an act of rebellion against God.
- No sin is small.
15. The Lie: God can’t forgive what I have done.
The Truth
- The blood of Jesus is sufficient to cover any and every sin I have committed.
- There is no sin too great for God to forgive.
- God’s grace is greater than the greatest sin anyone could ever commit.
16. The Lie: I am not fully responsible for my actions and reactions.
The Truth
- God does not hold me accountable for the actions of others.
- I am responsible for my own choices.
17. The Lie: I cannot walk in consistent victory over sin.
The Truth
- If I am a child of God, I don’t have to sin.
- I am not a slave to sin. Through Christ, I have been set free from sin.
- By God’s grace and through the finished work of Christ on the cross, I can experience victory over sin.
18. The Lie: I don’t have time to do everything I’m supposed to do.
The Truth
- There is time in every day to do everything that God wants me to do.
19. The Lie: I can make it without consistent time in the Word and prayer.
The Truth
- It is impossible for me to be the woman God wants me to be apart from spending consistent time cultivating a relationship with Him in the Word and prayer.
20. The Lie: A career outside the home is more valuable and fulfilling than being a wife and mother.
The Truth
- In the will of God, there is no higher, holier calling than to be a wife and mother.
- God uniquely designed the woman to be a bearer and nurturer of life.
- There is no greater measure of a woman’s worth or success than the extent to which she serves as the heart of her home.
- God’s plan is that a woman’s primary attention and efforts should be devoted to ministering to the needs of her husband and children.
21. The Lie: I have to have a husband to be happy.
The Truth
- Happiness is not found in (or out of) marriage.
- There is no person who can meet my deepest needs. No one and nothing can make me truly happy, apart from God.
- God has promised to provide everything I need. If He will receive more glory by my being married, then He will provide a husband for me.
- Those who wait on the Lord always get His best. Those who insist on getting what they want often end up with heartache.
22. The Lie: It is my responsibility to change my mate.
The Truth
- A godly life and prayer are a wife’s two greatest means of influencing her husband’s life.
- It is far more effective for a woman to appeal to the Lord to change her husband than to try to exert pressure on him directly.
23. The Lie: My husband is supposed to serve me.
The Truth
- If I expect to be served, I will often be disappointed. If I seek to serve others, without expecting anything in return, I will never be disappointed.
- God made the woman to be a helper to the man.
- We are never more like Jesus than when we are serving others.
24. The Lie: If I submit to my husband, I’ll be miserable.
The Truth
- Submission places me under the covering and protection of God, who controls the “heart of the king.”
- When I step out from under authority, I become vulnerable to the attacks of the Enemy.
- My willingness to place myself under God-ordained authority is the greatest evidence of how big I believe God really is.
- Reverent submission is a wife’s greatest means of influencing a husband who is not walking with God.
- A wife’s response to her husband’s authority should determine the way the church is to submit to the authority of the Lord Jesus.
25. The Lie: If my husband is passive, I’ve got to take the initiative, or nothing will get done.
The Truth
- God created the man to be an initiator and the woman to be a responder.
- If a woman takes the reins rather than waiting on God to move her husband, her husband is likely to be less motivated to fulfill his God-given responsibility.
26. The Lie: Sometimes divorce is a better option than staying in a bad marriage.
The Truth
- Marriage is a lifelong covenant that is intended to reflect the covenant-keeping heart of God. As He is faithful to His covenant, so we must be faithful to keep our marriage covenant.
- There is no marriage God cannot heal. There is no person God cannot change.
- God uses the rough edges of each partner in a marriage to conform the other to the image of Christ.
- God’s grace is sufficient to enable you to be faithful to your mate and to love and forgive without limit.
27. The Lie: It’s up to us to determine the size of our family.
The Truth
- God is the Creator and Giver of life.
- Anything that hinders or discourages women from fulfilling their God-given calling to be bearers and nurturers of life furthers Satan’s schemes and aids in his efforts.
- One of the purposes of marriage is to produce a “godly offspring.”
- Childbearing is a basic, God-given role for women. Children are to be received as a blessing from God.
28. The Lie: Children need to get exposed to the “real world” so that they can learn to function in it.
The Truth
- Our task is not to raise up children who can fit into this world or merely survive it but to bring up children who will be used by God to change our world.
- Like young, tender plants, children need to be protected from worldly influences until they are spiritually mature enough to withstand them.
- The fear of the Lord and a vital, personal relationship with God are the best means of preparing children to withstand secular culture and to make a difference in our world.
29. The Lie: All children will go through a rebellious stage.
The Truth
- If parents expect their children to rebel, they increase the likelihood that they will do so.
- God promises a blessing to parents who keep His covenant and who teach their children to do the same.
- Parents cannot force their children to walk with God, but they can model godliness and cultivate a climate in the home that creates an appetite for God and is conducive to the spiritual nurture and growth of their children.
30. The Lie: I know my child is a Christian because he prayed to receive Christ at an early age.
The Truth
- Those who do not have a heart for God or any hunger for things of God and who have a consistent pattern of rejecting the Word and ways of God have no basis for assurance of salvation.
- Parents who assume their children know the Lord, regardless of their lifestyle, may give their children a false sense of security and may not be praying appropriately for their children.
31. The Lie: We are not responsible for how our children turn out.
The Truth
- Parents have enormous influence in molding the lives of their children by their example, their teaching, and their leadership.
- Each generation is responsible to pass on to the next the heritage of a heart that knows and walks with God.
- Parents will give account to God for the spiritual condition of the lives He has entrusted to their care.
- Each individual is responsible for his own walk and obedience. Regardless of what kind of parents he had, each person will give account to God for his own choices.
32. The Lie: If I feel something, it must be true.
The Truth
- My feelings cannot always be trusted. They often have little to do with reality and can easily deceive me into believing things that are not true.
- I must choose to reject any feelings that are not consistent with the Truth.
33. The Lie: I can’t control my emotions.
The Truth
- I do not have to be controlled by my emotions.
- I can choose to fix my mind on the Truth, to take every thought captive to the Truth, and to let God control my emotions.
34. The Lie: I can’t help how I respond when my hormones are out of whack. (It’s understandable to act like a shrew at certain times.)
The Truth
- By God’s grace, I can choose to obey Him regardless of how I feel.
- There is no excuse for ungodly attitudes, responses, or behavior.
- My physical and emotional cycles and seasons are under the control of the One who made me, cares for me, and has made provision for each stage of my life.
35. The Lie: The answer to depression must first be sought in medication and/or psychotherapy.
The Truth
- Physical and emotional symptoms of depression may be the fruit of issues in the spirit that need to be addressed.
- If my depression did not originate as a physical problem, medication will not permanently relieve my depression.
- I do not have a “right” to “feel good.” Regardless of how I feel, I can choose to give thanks, to obey God, and to reach out to others.
- God has given us powerful resources—His grace, His Spirit, His Word, His promises, the body of Christ—to minister to our emotional needs.
36. The Lie: If my circumstances were different, I would be different.
The Truth
- My circumstances do not make me what I am; they merely reveal what I am.
- If I am not content with my present circumstances, I am not likely to be happy in any other set of circumstances.
- I may not be able to control my circumstances, but my circumstances do not have to control me.
- Every circumstance that touches my life has first been filtered through His fingers of love.
37. The Lie: I shouldn’t have to suffer.
The Truth
- It is impossible to be holy apart from suffering. There is a redemptive fruit that cannot be produced in our lives apart from suffering.
- We have been called to suffer.
- True joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of the Lord Jesus in the midst of the pain.
- Suffering is a pathway to sanctification, a doorway into greater intimacy with God.
38. The Lie: My circumstances will never change—this will go on forever.
The Truth
- My suffering may last a long time, but it will not last forever.
- My painful circumstances will not last one moment longer than God knows is necessary to achieve His eternal purposes in and through my life.
- One day, all pain, suffering, and tears will be removed forever.
39. The Lie: I just can’t take any more.
The Truth
- Whatever my circumstance, whatever my situation, His grace is sufficient for me.
- God will never place more on me than He will give me grace to bear.
40. The Lie: It’s all about me.
The Truth
- God is the beginning and ending and center of all things. All things were created by Him and for Him. It’s all about Him!
- My life is dispensable. I was created for His pleasure and glory.
Reprinted with permission from Lies Women Believe. Copyright 2001 by Nancy Leigh Demoss. Published by Moody Press. Used by permission.
