The moment of truth: answer a very personal question. Tell the truth and hurt people you love but win $100,000? Lie and you avoid pain only momentarily; the polygraph monitoring you will announce that you lied and everyone sees the truth anyway.
Quite a quandary! No matter what, the truth comes out. As it did for Lauren Cleri on the garish TV show Moment of Truth. With her parents and husband present, Cleri faced tough questions.
Her ex-boyfriend was there to ask, “Do you believe I’m the man you should be married to (instead of your husband?”
The crushing truth? “Yes.”
“Since you’ve been married, have you ever had sexual relations with someone other than your husband,” she was asked.
After a long pause, she answered, “Yes.”
One more question to win $200,000: “Are you a good person?”
“Yes,” Cleri replied. But the polygraph said she was lying.
Deep down, she knew the truth about herself, but for some reason she could not bring herself to admit it – not even for $200,000. Not even after admitting seemingly much more shameful things.
What would you do in that situation? Hopefully, you would have the good judgment to refuse to participate in such a dangerous and destructive game. But there is a moment of truth coming for each of us. One with much more at stake.
The Bible says “we will all stand before God's judgment seat . . . each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:10-12) and “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
There will be a moment of truth for each of us. And, we can’t bluff our way through it; God’s lie detector is far superior to any polygraph. He knows everything about us. We have secrets; we have shame. Will it all be exposed to the whole world?
Not if our record is purged. The good news of Jesus is that he can and will erase our records. "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more,” he promises (Hebrews 10:17).
When our moment of truth comes before God, he will look at those who belong to Jesus and amazingly see only Jesus’ perfect life given for us. He will say, “Yes, you are a good person – and I’ve been waiting for you.”
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