Last week, Moody Publishers released the updated and expanded edition of this book, originally published in 2001. Roughly one-third of the content is brand new, taking into account the many seismic changes in our culture with the advance of social media, among other things, since the book was originally released. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with a small group of other authors has done a really thorough and insightful job of addressing a multitude of ways that we, as Christian women, can sometimes be deceived, and find ourselves living in a way that reflects a reality other than God's powerful truth.
Now, I had not read the original book, but was eager to read the new one because of how much I thoroughly enjoy Nancy's daily teaching on the Revive Our Hearts podcast and how much I gleaned from her last book, Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together. I just finished reading Lies this evening, and had to sit right down to write this review while it's fresh in my mind. There was so much meaningful and thought-provoking material.
At the outset, Nancy makes it clear that the source of any deception that may captivate us is the same: the enemy of our souls whose tactics have always involved deceit and lies that cause people to question God's goodness, love, and motives. She lays a foundation for the book by looking at Eve, the very first woman to fall prey to the lies of Satan. As Nancy sums up: "Satan deceived Eve by causing her to make her decision based on what she could see and on what her emotions and her reason told her to be right, even when it was contrary to what God had already told the couple." And so the enemy continues today to trip us up by appealing to our sight, to our emotions, and our rational thinking with things contrary to God's best for us.
The book addresses a total of 45 lies that fall into 9 areas of our lives, including lies about God, ourselves, sin, priorities, sexuality, marriage, children, emotions, and circumstances. Before beginning to read, I proudly suspected I wouldn't find very many of the lies to be applicable or relevant to me. But as I read, I realized that there are many lies that are so subtle--and sound so rational or logical--that yes, indeed, I too fall prey to some of these enslaving lies, particularly in the area of priorities ("I don't have time to do everything I'm supposed to do" is a common thought in my mind, lie #18) and even in the area of marriage (I would never have said it quite this way, but when I read Nancy's description, I realized I fall squarely into lie #28 "My husband is supposed to serve me.")
For each of the 45 lies, Nancy counters them with truth--with Biblical principles and with soundly exposited scripture to show us how to walk forward in the freedom that truth brings. She wraps up the book with a section entitled "Countering Lies with Truth" in which she outlines practically speaking how do we allow the power of God's truth to transform our minds and our hearts. She also includes a list of 21 powerful truths about God and about who we are in Christ that make good fodder for meditation and devotional time.
This book is one I highly recommend and believe it makes excellent fodder for personal thought, for discipleship relationships, and for small group study. (There is a small group study guide available as well). I look forward to re-reading it and hopefully working through it with others!
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