For years I’ve heard women talk about this book and I finally finished it. Nancy Leigh De Moss’s book Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free gives a pretty thorough overview of common areas of deception

• Lies about themselves: I should not have to live with unfulfilled longings
• Lies about sin: I cannot walk in consistent victory over sin.
• Lies about their marriage: If I submit to my husband, I will be miserable.
• Lies about their emotions: I can’t control my emotions.
• Lies about their circumstances: I just can’t take it anymore.

We have all experienced a struggle with at least one of these categories and Nancy sheds some light on these lies and how to be delivered from them to freedom and forgiveness.

The main point I liked from this book was her exhortation to deal specifically with lies in our lives by:

1. Identifying the areas of sinful behavior in our lives
2. Identify the lies at root of that behavior.
3. Replace the lies with the Truth.

I thought Nancy did a good job outlining some of the lies behind feelings and thoughts women have–not believing that God loves you, entitlement, physical beauty matters most, my sin isn’t really that bad, it is my responsibility to change my husband, I can’t control my emotions, I shouldn’t have to suffer and if my circumstances were different, I would be different. As you can see, she covers many of the ways in which we could be deceived. At the end of each chapter she has provided questions to stimulate personal reflection over the material helping the reader–”Agree with God. Accept responsibility. And affirm the Truth.” She says at the end of the book, “True freedom is found in a vital, growing relationship with the Lord Jesus.” (p. 250) Overall she has some good perspectives.

I found the main premise of this book to actually be pretty confusing. It seems that she is writing to Christian women, but then she says that if she had to describe the majority of Christian women she would use the following words:

frazzled, defeated
exhausted, depressed
burned-out, ashamed
overwhelmed, emotionally unstable
confused, uptight
angry, insecure
frustrated, lonely
discouraged, fearful
and, yes, even suicidal
Bondage is another word that comes to mind when I think of contemporary Christian women…they are not free…by their own admission. (p. 17)

These Christian women don’t really sound like Christian women at all. There really is no difference between that list above and the life of a non-Christian woman. It isn’t to say that the Christian woman does not struggle with some of those things, I know I have felt exhausted, overwhelmed, angry and discouraged, but can a Christan woman be in bondage to something other than God?

I looked up the word bondage in the dictionary and it presents the idea of someone being subject to, controlled and mastered by something. If a Christian woman struggles in her relationship with God because she thinks, “God isn’t good. If her were He would______.” Nancy’s method to evaluate the lie and replace it with the truth is very helpful, but I don’t think Scripture describes a real Christian being mastered by doubt or fear, or anything other that the Lord.

In Romans 6:16-18 Paul writes:

“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Throughout this book, De Moss wants the reader to know that they are not alone and that struggling with these deceptions is very normal. She offers Biblical hope in saying that change is possible through the person of Jesus Christ and the power of the truth of God’s Word. In using terms like “bondage” or “enslaved to_____” to describe Christians, but in light of Romans 6, I think De Moss is confusing the need for “sanctification” with the need for “justification.”

• Being justified is a one time event in which a sinner is made right with God. Justification is the moment where through faith in Christ a person is set free from sin, judgment and eternal death and given a relationship with God and the power of the Holy Spirit. At justification, God makes you a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), you are filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to resist temptation and pursue righteousness.

• Being sanctified is the lifelong process of putting off sin and putting on holiness.

If someone has not been justified they cannot be sanctified. This book was in need of clarity on this point.

All in all this book offered some Biblical insights on lies that we women believe. A Christian woman using good discernment can glean some great things from this book, but I don’t know that I would really recommend it. Instead of this book I would suggest Martha Peace’s new book Damsels in Distress: Biblical Solutions for Problems Women Face.

I love how Elisabeth Elliot has said–

The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman. For I have accepted God’s idea of me, and my whole life is an offering back to Him of all that I am and all that He wants me to be.