The greatest lie ever told and believed continues to this day. We all have believed this lie and participated in this lie. No one is immune. Furthermore, we cannot save ourselves from continuing to live in this lie and believe this lie by our own ability, to simply believe right and do right.

I would propose that the first lie was the greatest lie, which every other lie is built upon. Lies, lies, and more lies! I would also suggest that every lie has the same source. The first lie ever told was straight from “the father of lies” (Jn. 8:44) himself, and it is recorded for us in the midst of the perfect garden, “The Garden of Eden.” Which implies that our environment or circumstances are not responsible for our lying choice.

The lie was told or presented through the serpent representing Satan (Rev. 12:9) to do what Satan does best, to lie by attempting to negate, nullify and deny the truth. What else could the Liar do but misrepresent the truth? Nothing. All he can do and ever has done is lie.

In the book of beginnings Genesis chapter 3 and in verses 4 and 5, we read the lie, “You will not die; you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” Notice, the lie always calls into question the Truth, God Himself who – Truth is.

The first lie promoted the philosophy of the liar, Satan, which is humanism. Humanism elevates man above God. Just like Satan believed the lie which is recorded for us in Isaiah 14 five times, Where Satan said of himself, “I will make myself like the Most High (God).” Humanism promotes the false premise of self-potential. The lie of self-potential is central to Satans lying scheme, because it strikes at the heart of the truth of God who is the only WAY, TRUTH & LIFE. Only God has self-potential and therefore, to suggest that anyone could by their own ability or actions do anything apart from God was and is the lie. Therefore, (drum-roll) the greatest lie ever told is the lie of self-potential, that you “can be all you can be” apart from God.

That is huge, everyone has participated in this lie. We might even suggest by this statement, that we have all lived a lie. The repercussions are massive! Believing the lie, man would now think he had the ability to determine and implement, whatever he chooses “to be and do,” often referred to as “free will.” However, only God has “free will.” Man has freedom of choice.

How do you distinguish between “free will” and “free choice”? There is a major difference between the two. God alone has full and absolute free-will, to determine His own course of action, to do whatever He chooses to do. We might say, He has ability, power to do anything because He is God. Man, however, is not God. And as man, does not have ability in himself “to do whatever he wishes” or chooses and make it happen. I typically illustrate this by simply suggesting to anyone who thinks they have free will, “to make a tree.” Only God is sovereign and has the ability to do whatever He wants consistent with His character. Man does not have free will but free choice. Freedom of choice is the volitional freedom we all have as human beings to make decisive choices in the will of our soul, however, we cannot do whatever we might want to do. We cannot create, we are not producers, but we were created to be expressors of God’s character. God did not design human beings to be independent selves, but dependent beings.

This is a most important clarification. There is a theme here, the Liar wanted us to believe his lie and hide the truth from us. Satan wanted to nullify or negate who God had created man to be in relationship with Himself. Remember, Jesus said, “you shall know the truth and truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Truth is a person!

Back to the Garden of Eden: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” The main truth that Satan was distracting Adam and Eve from is that God had created them to derive from God. God told Adam to eat freely from any tree but one or he would die. Life proceeds from God who is life. We derive life from God. Correspondingly, Satan knew man was not created to be an independent self. If he could deceive Adam into eating of the forbidden fruit, Man would by default derive from spiritual death. Paul tells us in Hebrews 2:14, “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” We derive what we do from a spiritual source of either God or Satan. God designed us to derive from Himself, to experience His Life and express His character. Satan always attempts to negate the truth That is his main purpose and thus, he would suggest that derivativeness is tyranny. Talk about a proverbial idiom, “The pot calling the kettle black,” which is used by a person who is guilty of the very thing, of which they accuse another.

The lie of Satan is that man could be man apart from God, living independently. The big lie, that man has self-potential and doesn’t need to God to be a man. The truth, however, is that man cannot be a man as God intended apart from God indwelling and expressing Himself though man. God had created man to be a dependent and derivative creator. Once Satan established the lie of independence, he could then promote the falsehood that man “has what it takes” to do whatever man needs to do. Man would thus “be like God,” an originator, His own source for whatever he needed and consequently, would no longer need God.

The lie of self-potential is the base of all religion. The lie of religious self-potential would now adopt a system of performance training, which would foster behavior modification to train people to behave in accord with the “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” expectations of laws, of course, by our own self-potential and failure to do so would imply you were at fault and needed to try harder. Driven to try harder to perform-better and to better oneself and the world around you. This deceptive lie now embraced by man. “The liar” would now easily promote his humanistic performance-based religious abilities “to be more like God.”

Religion is always based on the performance of law-keeping. Satan’s lie of self-potential would fuel the performance expectations that would become the means by which progress was evaluated and Satan would be the evaluator. The implications of the lie would be, Derivativeness was tyranny and that any person believing he was to depend on and derive from God was oppressed. Satan’s deception was now complete, in self-centeredness and selfishness man would believe that “whatever his mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” The lie of humanism.

We have had a wrong focus. If our focus is simply on behavior, “right or wrong,” we will miss the point of truth. We must not let our circumstances dictate our decision, and neither does our behavioral choice alone determine truth or lies. If our focus regarding telling the truth or telling a lie is focused exclusively on our behavior, IT IS A LIE. God is truth and Satan is a liar. Either God controls your life by your choosing to let Him, or Satan controls your life by your choosing to let him. You and I were designed by God to be ruled by a spirit, by our spiritual condition. Our choice is not whether to be ruled, but rather, by which spirit we will be ruled!

Whose ruling your life today? Who are you depending on and deriving from? “Let the peace of Christ, to which you were indeed called in one body, rule in your hearts; and be thankful” (Col. 3:15).