Honesty Is the Only Policy* by Bruce Larson

by Bruce Larson

Executive Director, Faith at Work (1963-75)

God is not shocked by our sins. There isn't a sin that any of us has committed, or is now practicing, that Jesus Christ did not deal with realistically in His life and sacrificially on the cross. Jesus associated with call girls, alcoholics, and chiselers. He didn't condone what they did. Nor did He leave them as He found them. But the record indicates that they enjoyed His company.

However, two very fine people---Ananias and Sapphira---dropped dead in His first church (Acts, chapter five). They weren't drunks. As far as we know, he wasn't cheating on her. They went to prayer meetings. They were more than tithers. But they were pretending something that wasn't true before God and before His people.

Their death was not a punishment from God. Spiritual laws are such that when we are hypocrites, we cut ourselves off from the life God wants to give us, and pick our own kind of death---a sudden coronary or some slow death. But death is inevitable, whether physical, mental, psychic, or spiritual. Ananias and Sapphira were pretenders. They didn't have to give a cent from the land they sold, but they pretended to give it all when they gave only half.

How accurate a picture do Ananias and Sapphira give us of our own lives and our own churches? Do I dare find out who I really am? Have I let anyone else know me? The lie we live is probably only a lie we tell ourselves. We really fool only ourselves. Most people close to us surely see more than we think, but they are too polite to tell us what they see.

A bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His Church. It's an imitation, but it is like what the Church ought to be, only with liquor at the center instead of grace---escape instead of reality.

What is a bar like? It is a permissive, accepting, inclusive fellowship, unshockable and democratic. You can tell people secrets and nobody repeats them or even wants to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved. The Church rarely offers this, so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.

Christ wants His Church to be unshockable, democratic, permissive, and filled with the real Spirit--- a fellowship where people can come in and say, "I'm sunk!" "I'm beat!" "I've had it!" What keeps us from this quality of life? Many church members are genuinely committed to Jesus Christ but have no resulting power. The rebirth of a Biblical theology in most major denominations today has resulted in a commitment-centered message. I genuinely rejoice in it, but it's not enough. One more altar call, decision card, church officers' retreat, or camp fire surrender won't do it. Something else is needed. A fellowship must exist where committed people can begin to be honest with each other and discover the dimension of apostolic fellowship.

It is interesting to see that much of the indifferent, irreligious part of our society today is living a fairly honest life, but equally without power. They are a wonderful crowd in a way, but they are lost and lonely, rebellious and confused. However, they often have more reality and genuine concern for others than many church people. There is a minimum of soul-stifling pretense. They cheat on their income tax and laugh about it on the golf course. They get drunk in front of the whole club. They tell their marital troubles to the hairdresser. They talk honestly to the bartender, deeply to the psychiatrist, and indiscreetly in the locker room to each other. There is healthy openness and transparency.

We all know what can happen when one of these open, honest pagans comes to a Billy Graham meeting or some such place and finds the chance to "make a decision." When the statement, "Jesus Christ, take my whole life," is coupled with honesty, we see a person born in the Spirit right before our eyes!

The Holy Spirit is constantly calling men to both commitment and confession. These seem to be the two "keys" to receiving power. Apart from total commitment to God of all that one is and has, there is no power. But commitment alone does not open the door for the Holy Spirit to do His desired work in us. The second key is needed. We can call it "honesty"---a word seldom found in a theological wordbook or concordance. The Biblical word "confession" makes most people today think of a little booth and a priest. This is not what the New Testament writers intended. They meant being honest with God in the presence of one other person or several others.

For those who are fundamentally honest, a new or deeper commitment to Christ can be the beginning of a transformed life. But for the committed Christian who has missed the power of the Holy Spirit to become a new person, honesty with another about himself can remove the blocks and bring freedom and release.

When an individual uses the two keys of commitment and confession, the Holy Spirit will come in, do His work, and give His gifts. He is eager to get His hands on us because He loves us. He does not have to be coaxed or implored. When we accept the conditions and remove the blocks, He is immediately free to heal and help and empower.

We don't have to wonder if this has happened to us. When God has His way and we are liberated, we know it and the world knows it. He doesn't make us perfect. We still have to say "forgive me" daily. But we walk in the light with God, with each other, and with ourselves.

Honesty is God's way for a family of Christians to become a Christian family. In our first church my wife and I were both committed Christians, but we hadn't yet discovered a Christian marriage. Then God sent two other young married girls to my wife. Over coffee one morning the three admitted for the first time what kinds of wives and mothers they really were. When they prayed together, Christ's healing began.

We three husbands saw the change in our wives and began to let God work on us, too. That meant there were six committed people living in honest fellowship, meeting together each week. The group began to grow and divide. Within two years there were a dozen groups like it meeting throughout the city, involving people from different churches. But it all began with three girls over coffee saying, "This is who I really am. I don't want to be like this any more. Jesus Christ, will You change me?" His answer is always "Yes!"

It works with children, too. They need to know who their parents really are. This gives them freedom to minister to us. One of our sons, when he was six, prayed one night at family devotions, "Lord, forgive us for running all over the country telling people about Jesus and then being so grumpy at home!" They pray for us and become instruments of Christ's healing. Their faith then is in Christ, not in their parents, and they become unshockable.

Honesty is also the key to fellowship. The equation for New Testament Christianity is fourfold: "And they continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers" (Acts 2:42). Most churches are strong on doctrine, prayers, and communion, but the apostolic fellowship is missing. This isn't the only way to the renewal of the Church, but it's part of the pattern. A three-wheeled wagon can't go very far.

Honesty can also be the key to personal effectiveness. God uses my confessed, redeemed sins more than all the theology and psychology I've learned. Nothing ever seems to happen when I'm not honest with a person in need. When I'm merely counseling with sound Biblical theology, I never see "Biblical results." The price needs to be paid in honesty.

The Bible is full of the theology of confession. It begins with Adam and runs through the institution of the Levitical priesthood, the experience of the Psalmist, the conviction of the prophets, and on into the New Testament. Church history tells us that the early Church practiced confession openly within the fellowship for the first Few hundred years. Confession to a priest became an option, and remained so from the fifth century until the thirteenth, when a Papal decree made it the only acceptable way.

Today with the renewal of the Church centering in rediscovery of the lay ministry and small group fellowship, we are about to see on a large scale new facets of the old truth that honesty is indeed the only policy.

*This article also appears as Chapter 11 in Dare To Live Now! Zondervan, 1965.

Check out Bruce Larson's vision for the church of the 21st century.
The Church in 2020

• An informative article about applying FAW principles to one's daily life is The Jesus Style in Relationships.

• Sam Shoemaker's Twelve Steps to Power

• To read about the Four Primary Relationships check out The Realm of Right Relationships