Lies Women Believe About God

Leslie Basham: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminds you of a powerful truth that will affect the rest of your life.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Regardless of what it may feel like to you at any given moment, God is good. And regardless of whether you feel it or not, God loves you and wants you to have His best. These are truths about God that we need to counsel our heart with.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe, for Tuesday, February 20, 2018.

Nancy: Well, as I let you know yesterday, this week we’re celebrating the release of the updated, expanded version of Lies Women Believe. It was first published in 2001—seventeen years ago. That means I wrote it almost twenty years—eighteen to nineteen years ago. It released in ’01, and now we have the updated, expanded version.

This version has been, I’m thinking, a couple of years in the making—and longer than that since we first started talking about it. It’s approximately one-third new content. So even if you’ve read the original Lies, you’re going to feel like this is a different book. There’s a lot of new content in it. There are a lot of updates, revisions, based on changes in our world, changes in our culture over the last seventeen years since the original book was released.

And we’re making it available, the new version, updated and expanded, to our listeners this week as our way of saying “thank you” when you make a gift of any amount to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts.

Give us a call at 1–800–569–5959 to let us know you’d like to make a donation to the ministry. And when you do, be sure to ask for a copy of the new Lies Women Believe, and we’ll be glad to send that to you.

Listen, when you support this ministry, you’re helping make it possible for women around the world to be impacted with resources like Lies Women Believe and this program, Revive Our Hearts, as you have been,

In this book we talk about lies women believe about themselves, about sin, about priorities, about sexuality—which is a whole new chapter that was written by my sweet friend, Dannah Gresh, who has a vibrant ministry helping women in the relation of biblical sexuality, sexual healing, etc.

There’s a chapter about lies we believe about marriage, another about lies women believe about children.

You say, “Well, I’m not married. I don’t have children.” You need to know what’s in those chapters. One: in case you ever are married or have children. And two: in case you know anybody who is married or has children. These are important things to understand because they run upstream to our culture. We need to recalibrate our thinking with the truth of God’s Word in these basic areas.

There are also lies women believe about emotions, about circumstances.

You’ll find chapters on all of these. And foundational to all of those other topics is the chapter in this book about God—lies women believe about God. And I say it’s foundational because what we think and believe about God is fundamental to every other area of our lives. It impacts everything about our lives, our relationships, what we believe about God, whether we realize that or not.

So we talk about lies in that chapter, such as:

• The lie that God is not really good.

Now, these are not lies we would probably say aloud, but they’re things that deep down we kind of wonder or we question or we’re suspicious about.

• The lie that God doesn’t love me. He loves everybody else, but He doesn’t really love me.
• The lie that God is just like my father. We’re going to talk about that one today.
• The lie that God is not really enough.
• The lie that God’s ways are restrictive.
• The lie that God should fix all my problems and make them go away.

One woman said, and I’m sharing some of these stories from the original Lies throughout this series this week. She said,

I remember thinking after reading the table of contents that I didn’t need to read this book. Wow, was I wrong. You showed me how I was believing lies—things that didn’t mesh with what I knew to be true of God. So in my head I knew what was right, but I was living in a way that was functionally atheist. I wasn’t living in a way that was consistent with the truth about God.

This is hugely important. I can’t overstate how much what we believe about God impacts every other area of our lives.

I started recently another reading through the Old Testament. I’ve been loving it. And this is the starting place for this whole grand redemptive story. “In the beginning, God . . . in the beginning, God.”

Genesis 1:1, there’s the assumption that God is. That’s something a lot of people question today. But the Scriptures start with this fundamental assumption, this truth, that God is. And then it goes on to tell us in page after page after page who this God is, what He’s like. From the very first page, through all of Scripture, God is revealing Himself, revealing His character, revealing His ways.

First, He revealed Himself to Adam and Eve, both before they sinned and after they sinned.

Then, He revealed Himself to Cain after he murdered his brother.

And then, He revealed Himself to Noah. Now, I’m just going to highlight some things I’ve been reading over the last several weeks and what I’ve been looking at. What has God revealed about Himself to Noah? Who is saved with his family when the whole rest of the world perishes in a flood?

God revealed Himself to Abraham and to Sarah when they are called out of their idol worshiping homeland to follow God to a new land. And then, years later, when they are old and barren, and it seems that God’s promise that He would give them as many descendants as the sands of the sea, it seems like those promises will never come true. God reveals Himself to Abraham and to Sarah.

God reveals Himself to Lot and to his wife, who vacillate between their love for God and their affection for this world.

God reveals Himself to Hagar, a single mom, and her teenage son, Ishmael, who had been cast out of the family.

He reveals Himself to Isaac and Rebekah, as they deal with the sibling rivalries of their competitive twin sons.

He reveals Himself to Isaac and Rebekah’s younger son, Jacob, who deceives and manipulates to get the birthright from his older brother, Esau, then runs to another country to escape his brother’s wrath.

God reveals Himself to Rachel and to Leah, the unloved wife. We’ll talk more about those two sisters and some lies they believed tomorrow, here on Revive Our Hearts.

God reveals Himself to Joseph and his treacherous brothers.

God reveals Himself to the children of Israel who were enslaved in Egypt and suffering brutal oppression.

He reveals Himself to those Jewish mothers who endure the unspeakable horror of Pharaoh snuffing out the lives of their baby boys—genocide.

God reveals Himself to Moses, who feels utterly inadequate when God calls him to deliver His people out of slavery.

And God reveals Himself to Pharaoh, who thinks he is god.

And on and on. You see, the Bible is not a collection of interesting or inspiring stories. It’s the revelation of who God is, and why that matters, and what difference it makes in our lives.

He revealed Himself to these men and women, and others that I could have named, throughout the Scripture as being:

• holy
• sovereign
• good
• forgiving
• merciful
• gracious
• kind
• wise
• powerful
• eternal
• always present

That’s a recurring refrain throughout the Scripture: “I am with you. I am with you. You go here, I will be with you. You go there, I will be with you. Yes, you’re experiencing this, but I am with you.” I AM is with you, Yahweh, the LORD, the sovereign Lord who’s making Himself known.

All of this really mattered to these people—whether they believed God was who He said He was, or believed things about Him that were not true. It determined the course and the outcome of their lives.

And what you and I today believe about God really matters. Whether we believe what He has revealed about Himself, or believe things about Him that are not true, determines the course and the outcome of our lives. This is something that a lot of women have discovered over the years in reading the original Lies Women Believe.

One woman taught this book in a Sunday school class, and she said,

After the third class, when we talked about lies about God, one woman confessed to me privately something she’d hidden from everyone for eighteen years—that she’d had an abortion. She said she realized she had believed the lie that God was “just like her father.” He had never forgiven her for getting pregnant and having the abortion, so she assumed her heavenly Father wouldn’t either.

And then here’s a touching one from a dad who wrote and said,

My daughter’s live-in boyfriend just kicked her out, after her mom and I had been praying for two years for her to come back to Christ. She’s staying with my mom now and was walking aimlessly through the house, crying, when she found a copy of Lies Women Believe.

This was literally an hour ago, so this is a work in progress, but she is devouring the book, crying like a wounded child, and saying, “Daddy, there’s hope! I never expected to feel this level of love and comfort from God and this book. I know I can’t lean on others; I have to lean on God.”

She is being lifted up and comforted by the Lord right now. I’m crying as I type this. The truth about who God is is setting this woman free.

So, what difference does it make to know God for who He really is?

I want to share with you, it’s fairly lengthy, but I think this is so precious, a testimony I read recently called, “I Couldn’t Call God ‘Father’: An Iranian Woman’s Journey of Faith.” Here’s what she said:

In Islam there are ninety-nine names for Allah, and not one of them is "Father."

I am from a family of six children. My father never showed us any love. Whenever I heard of people speak about the love and support of their fathers, I had no idea what they meant. My father was an angry man. He abused us, especially my mother, emotionally and physically. She was beaten several times to within an inch of her life. Yet she put up with this to protect us children. I also remember the day when my father tried to kill my brother, forcing him to run away barefooted into the street.

When I was old enough, I left Iran so that I could be free of my father and have a better life. I ended up in the UK.

I always had a negative view of men. I questioned why God had given men such power. I tried to be strong, yet I was depressed and tired of life. One day, alone in my room, I spoke for the first time to the God of creation.

I had given up on my religion, which had always made me feel weak and afraid. Now I prayed to the God I did not know, yet whose presence I sensed in a real way. I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to commit suicide, as it would bring shame on my mother. So I asked God to kill me. But He didn’t kill me. He gave me life. Let me tell you how.

Now, she goes on to tell about how God used a nonbeliever to introduce her to someone else who led her to Jesus. And then she says:

But afterwards, there was a great challenge awaiting me. I had to accept God as my Father. In my mind, “Father” was not a word of honor toward the God I had come to know. “Mother” would have felt like a much better word. But God wanted to reveal Himself to me. And He did so with complete patience and gentleness.

As I studied the Bible, [that’s where you get a right view of God] I saw the grace and love of the Father. As I prayed, I felt the attention of the Father. As I worshiped, I felt the embrace of the Father. He healed my past, my present, and my future. He has transformed me. He even enabled me to truly forgive my earthly father. I used to hate the word “Father,” but today I worship God the Father with great love and passion.

And that’s not the end, because of what God did in the life of this woman by introducing her to God who is, as He really is, others began to be impacted by that same God. Here’s what she says:

I was the first in my family to become a Christian. When I shared the gospel with my mother, she said that at her age of sixty, she could not change. But over time, God’s sovereign love wooed and won her heart, and today she worships Jesus.

I shared Jesus with my nephew. Today he worships Jesus.

When my sister-in-law had a problem, I prayed for her and shared a Bible verse. Today she worships Jesus.

My sister saw the change in my life. Today she worships Jesus.

One of my brothers was an atheist. But today he worships Jesus.

I saw eleven people come to Christ. But my father did not.

He had left my mother for a woman my age. It inflicted a lot of pain on the family, and for a long time nobody spoke with him. But God put it on my heart to call and talk with him.

One day on the phone, my father told me he had cancer. His young wife had left him. My mother, who had grown in faith, bravely decided to go and care for him on his deathbed.

Three days before my father died, I called and spoke to him one last time. I told him about the dying thief next to Jesus on the cross. “Like the thief,” I told him, “you can still be forgiven.” My mother was there, and she held his hand as he smiled and asked Jesus to forgive and redeem him.

The power of the truth about God—that He is and who He is—it will change your life, and it will change other people’s lives through you.

I read a tweet the other day, as I was thinking about this subject. I want to share it with you. It said: “When we are anxious, depressed, or irritable, it’s likely because we’re believing a lie about ourselves or about God.”

Now, you think about that. When we’re anxious, when we’re depressed, when we’re irritable—like, who hasn’t been one or more of those things within the last week, twenty-four hours, maybe the last hour? Anxious, depressed—some of you live this way—anxious, depressed, irritable.

This writer said, “When we’re anxious, depressed or irritable, it’s likely because we’re believing something that isn’t true—about ourselves or about God.”

We don’t want to just focus on the lies. We want to point ourselves and others to the truth.

The reason I wrote the original Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, and the reason we’ve spent the last year or two updating and expanding that book, so now we have the new Lies Women Believe, it’s all to encourage you to cherish great thoughts of God. That’s the purpose.

So throughout this book, not only in the chapter about God, but throughout, we talk about the truth that God is good. Regardless of what it may feel like it to you at any given moment, God is good. And regardless of whether you feel it or not, God loves you and wants you to have His best. These are truths about God that we need to counsel our heart with.

Here’s another truth: God is enough. If we have Him, we have everything that we need for our present peace and happiness, and not only our present peace and happiness, but our eternal peace and happiness. God is enough. “The Lord is my shepherd,” the psalmist said, “I have everything that I need.” That’s the truth about God.

Here’s another truth: God can be trusted—God can be trusted.

My husband and I are going to be writing a book this year, to release next year, Lord willing, called, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story. Whether it’s your love story or your financial story or your pain story or your children’s story—whatever your story is—you can trust God to write it.

God keeps His promises. He has promised never to leave us, never to forsake us. He has promised that those who trust in Him will never be disappointed, Isaiah 28:16.

And at times I have to remind myself—you may need to remind yourself of the same thing—“Listen, soul, has God has ever once let me down?”

“Well, no. There were times when I thought He might.”

“But has He ever?”

“Well, no. God has never once let me down—and He’s not going to start now!”

We need to remind ourselves of these truths about God.

One woman wrote after reading the original Lies Women Believe,

For the first time, I believe that God can be completely trusted. I am free from the need to figure out this world and my place in it. I can rest—I can rest—in the One who owns the world and trust Him to guide, protect, comfort, and bring me joy.

God can be trusted.

Another truth about God: God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t make mistakes ever. He never has. He never will. Now, other people may make serious mistakes—we all do—and other people may make serious mistakes that affect our lives in significant ways. But God is always fulfilling His eternal purposes for us and for this whole world and for all of time and eternity, and those purposes cannot be thwarted by any human sin or failure.

If we are in Christ, our lives are in His hand, and nothing, nothing, nothing can touch us that has not first been filtered through His fingers of love. God determines the intensity and the duration of the pain—I’ll be talking about that later this week—and when we stand in eternity—a moment or two from now, relatively speaking—when we stand in eternity looking back on this earthly existence, we will know then by sight what we can now only see by faith: He has done all things well.

One of the devotional books I’ve been using over the past year said it this way: “When God is your supreme value, your ultimate good, no matter what pain washes into your life, your deepest joys cannot be threatened.”

Why is that? Because God will be your deepest joy. You will be able to trust Him, to rest in Him, to lean on Him. So when He is your supreme value, your ultimate good, when He matters more to you than anything or anyone else on the face of this earth, then no matter what pain may wash into your life and for how long it may be, your deepest joys will be secure, will never be threatened.

Leslie: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been explaining why our beliefs about God will so greatly affect everything else in life. Nancy will be right back.

She writes in depth about our beliefs about God in the book, Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free. This book first came out seventeen years ago, and God has used it in the lives of countless women. A million copies have sold.

A lot has changed in the seventeen years since, and Nancy has updated the book for a new generation. In fact, about 30% of the material is new or updated in this new release.

When you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any size, we’ll say “thanks” by sending you this revised version of Lies Women Believe. Call 1–800–569–5959, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

The book of Genesis tells us a story that could unfold like a soap opera. It’s about two sisters vying for the attention of the same man. Nancy says these sisters were believing a series of lies about themselves. She’ll identify those lies and help us turn from them to cling to the truth. That’s tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy’s back to close our time and pray for the re-release of Lies Women Believe.

Nancy: I want to invite you to pray with us that God will use this new, updated, expanded version of Lies Women Believe to help many women—women in difficult circumstances, women in painful situations, women with baggage from years of things they’ve done sinfully or sinful things that have been done to them over many years. Pray that God will use this book to help these women know Him, that He is, and who He really is, and that He loves them, that He’s working out plans for this world that includes them, and that He can be trusted no matter what.

Woman: Lord, I want to pray that the truth in this book would penetrate deeply into the hearts of every woman who reads it. And I want to pray that the difference that it makes in people’s lives would point back to You and Your power.

Woman: Father, would You take the words of this book, and would you take it into the places where women are oppressed, where Your truth has never been heard, where everything of what the evil one has established as truth is darkness and is killing, stealing, and destroying everything that Jesus came to give.

And so we pray, Father, into the uttermost parts of the earth, would You take the truth of Your Word as given through this book? And would You use it to set women free? Would You use it as a bridge for the gospel? Would You be pleased, Father, to, as Nancy said earlier today, many who would not even naturally or normally receive such a word, would You just draw them, draw them to Yourself through that? And we will be so careful to give You all the praise.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to know the truth about God.

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