ELUL 10

Falsity

“Therefore, rejecting all falsity and being done now with it …” (Eph 4:25 AMPC)

The word ‘reject’ is such a strong word, yet it really is perfect for the thought that is being presented here. Reject means “to refuse to have, take, recognize, etc.; to refuse to grant (a request, demand, etc.); to refuse to accept (someone or something); rebuff; to discard as useless or unsatisfactory; to cast out or reject; vomit; to cast out or off”^{^[1]} (emphasis mine). Truthfully, the entirety of this definition fits right in with our process of internal auditing during this month of Elul; we are to reject, discard and cast off all the garbage that prevents and hinders us from becoming the person that Elohim would want to spend eternity with.

Many translations use the word ‘lying’ in this verse, instead of ‘falsity’, which is also correct. The Greek word that is used here is the word pseudos (Strong’s G5579), from which we arrive at our English word pseudonym, a fictitious name, generally used by authors.^{^[2]} Again, it denotes something that is false, and not the truth. Having pointed that out, it is easy to surmise that pseudos can mean anything and everything that is not what it seems to be; it is false.

We know that we are ‘to speak the truth in love’ (Eph 4:15), that nothing false should every come out of our mouths – we will look at the rest of our opening verse tomorrow, where it addresses this issue specifically. What I would like for us to focus on here is HOW we represent ourselves, and HOW we present ourselves to those around us. It is very easy on all the social media outlets – just to make this an example – to misrepresent ourselves as to the who we really are, and thus project an image of an individual that does not, in reality, even exist. We can find examples of this daily with what we see and read on Facebook.

However, I earnestly and honestly believe that it is past time to realistically take a hard look at the image we portray to others, and not just limited to social media. Is the person that others are seeing/reading about who I really am? Or am I projecting someone that has no relation to the person that is me? This is a call to transparency, of discarding the façade we have allowed to represent who we think we are.

Will the real (insert your own name) please stand up?

“And there shall by no means enter into it whatever is unclean, neither anyone doing abomination and FALSEHOOD, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Rev 21:27, emphasis mine)