Do you remember being punished as a child when you did something naughty? Maybe you spoke back to your mother, hit your sister, or broke something you should not have been playing with. Or maybe you lied. Many parents say the most frustrating thing their kids can do is lie. Maybe it is because lying is manipulative and intentionally misleading. It’s never a good way to go through life … even for little kids.

Once I knew a chronic liar. He lied about everything: his friends, his schoolwork, his job. He even lied about the little things, things that didn’t matter, like what he had for lunch. He could not stop himself. It made me doubt everything that came out of his mouth. It kept me from trusting him.

That’s why lying is so frustrating. Without truth, there cannot be trust, and without trust, there cannot be real love and friendship. That is why 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible says that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but [it] rejoices with the truth.” It’s like when parents punish a child. They don’t punish the child because they do not love her. Instead, they punish her because they love her, because they want her to mature.

Love rejoices when the truth is told, because it is then that trust and love can develop. Love is never deceitful, because God is truth. Reach your world today by rejoicing in God’s truth, and invite others into that rejoicing, also.          This is Luis Palau.