A father was looking at bicycles with one of his children when a deliveryman came into the store. He didn’t see a TV set perched on a stand, and with his cart stacked high with boxes he hit the television and sent it crashing to the floor. As father and son watched, the store manager said, “Don’t worry. We won’t make you pay for it. We’ll just tell the manufacturer it was damaged in shipping, and he’ll give us a new one.” A lie!

The father, a believer in Christ, left the store without making a purchase. He did not want to give his business to a man who would lie without giving it a thought.

It’s pretty tough not to fall into a pattern of lying. But if we give in to the temptation to lie, soon we are doing it so often that we’re not even aware of it anymore. It becomes a way of life. What we don’t realize is that for the few bucks we may save, we’ve sold out on a basic principle of the Bible (Eph. 4:25) and compromised our witness for Christ.

The standards of God’s Word are high. We must not lower them for the sake of financial gain or because we fear that it’s the only way our business can survive. Our rule in business and in all of life should be: “No Lying.”