Who told you?

Genesis 3:11–12

God cares about the voices that form us for good and evil. He wants us to name the lies we believe and also to name the enemy as the liar and thief he is.

Who told you all the lies you believe about yourself, others, or God? The most important thing about you is not that you sin or struggle. The most important thing is that you know who the real enemy is (not you and not God) and that your sin and struggle aren’t the real enemies. These things may be real in our lives, but God wants to cover them and heal us and make us whole. But he needs us to know he’s not the source of that brokenness.

Before Adam and Eve left the garden, God covered their nakedness with the pelts of animals. He made a blood sacrifice to cover the effect of the enemy’s sin on God’s people. He did it again for all people, for all time, in the second Adam: Christ.

Your anger, my anxiety, your fear, my shyness, your lust, my grief, your pride, my shame—these effects of the enemy on all humans have all been named by God and covered by God. He’s not ashamed to call us his own, laden as we are with these lived and difficult realities. Instead, he makes a cloak big enough for all humanity under the shadow of his wings, represented by the arms of Christ spread wide on the cross. He names our sin for us and then covers it.

Who told you the lies you believe?