Inside Out Living

This morning I was watching the Today show and they had an interview with the mother of the little girl who submitted a false essay to win a contest for Hannah Montana tickets. Turns out the mother actually helped the daughter write the essay. They now claim that they didn't know that the essay had to be factual and that they didn't intend to mislead anyone. Are you kidding me?

Now I don't really care about the tickets what really bothers me about this is the dishonesty and the unwillingness to just admit that they were wrong and got caught. For crying out loud she had a lawyer with her on the Today Show interview. There isn't even an ethical delimma here, there is no grey area for this mother to hide in. Even those among us that live in a land of moral relativism can clearly see that this deception was wrong regardless of their intention.

The Bible is very clear that this type of deception is wrong and is not approved of by our heavenly father. We are to let our yes be a yes and our no be a no. Basically meaning that we are not to deceive. You can also look at Ananias and Sapphira in the NT to see how God feels about deception. Another great example is King Saul in the OT when he spared the king of Amalek and some of the animals when God commanded him to utterly destroy everything. He reluctently took responisibility but it was too late. Compare Saul with King David who later when he deceived the nation by his sin with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah the Hittite was immediately repentant when confronted by the prophet Nathan.

Ethical standards are important for every person but especially so for Christians because we represent the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is also clear in scripture that God has an expectation of ethical behavior. Bear in mind that there is grace and forgiveness when we sin, but we need to acknowledge that sin and ask for forgiveness.