Let's Talk About Truth

My goal in writing for this blog is pretty simple: I aspire to offer help for people wishing to take their faith in Christ from average to awesome.  I can’t sugarcoat things: there’s a lot of aspects involved in this.  One needs a strong church family to be involved in, one needs to serve, discipleship is absolutely vital—but I realize that we need to start someplace.

I’ve tried to think about what is the absolute root of deep, growing faith; the kind of faith that produces results, not just parishioners.  There’s obviously plenty to choose from, but over and above all else, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the way we treat the Bible means more than anything.  There is no other aspect of Christianity that has quite as much potential to spiritually make or break us.  So, in light of that, I’m going to spend the next few weeks writing about the Word of God.

To begin, though, we need to come to an agreement, and because of that, I’d like to bring up the topic of Truth.

We, as humans, have a remarkable propensity to modify our beliefs, to rationalize, and to mitigate.  In this day and age, truth is malleable.  It can be molded to the situation, and to whomever is speaking it at the moment.  The key—from the world’s perspective—is to know what is true for you.  We are told at every turn that what’s true is less important than what feels right, or what feels good.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Bible holds no Congress with such ideas.  Almost nothing is more important to the Christian believer than the truth.

“For we cannot oppose the truth, but must always stand for the truth.” (2 Cor 13:8, NLT)

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32, NIV)

“‘These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates.  Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,' declares the LORD.” (Zec 8:16, NIV)

The faithful believer knows with an ironclad certainty that there is a line between truth and lie that, no matter how thin, is never able to be bent, changed, or rewritten.  Right and wrong are not debatable topics to be decided by group consensus or mob rule.

So, the obvious question arises: what is truth?

“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” (John 17:17, NASB)

Jesus prays that to his father on behalf of his disciples.  You can’t get a better first-party source than that.  But Jesus also had some other, equally blunt things to say about where truth comes from.

“Yeshua said to him, ‘I AM THE LIVING GOD, The Way and The Truth and The Life; no man comes to my Father but by me alone.’” (John 14:6, Aramaic in Plain English)

Jesus names himself as Truth, and the bearer of truth.  His words are God’s words, and thus the Truth speaks the truth.  The Bible says over and over that God is faithful and true, and that no falsehood can be found in him, but Truth goes further than merely not telling lies.  God is the sole source of all that is and always will be True.

If you call yourself a believer and a Christian, this is not a debatable term.  This is one of the ironclad, fundamental aspects of Christ: that God’s Word is the source of perfect, holy truth for every situation.  This means that many things we take as our beliefs may need to be modified in the light of what the Scriptures say.  Personally, I’m a big believer that once you’ve taken context and history into account, you must take what the Bible says to be true, no matter what.  This could mean that some of your new beliefs don’t fit in with those around you (in fact, if you’re doing it right, they often won’t).  It might mean that people label you as “intolerant”, “hateful”, or “arrogant”.

Here’s one of the beautiful things, though: we aren’t called to argue on behalf of the truth of God’s Word.  Jesus is Truth, and his truth defends itself as his words and his terms are played out in life.  The sight of someone who firmly and rightly handles truth is startling, especially in this day and age.  It’s very hard for someone to see it and not have a response to it.

Knowing this, think about what beliefs you take as “true” that could stand to be re-evaluated in light of the Scriptures you claim to believe in.  Do you even know what the Bible says about such topics?  We’ll cover more on that in the coming weeks, so I hope to see you here again next Monday.

Hide And Seek

I'm going to write a post about something that gives me a lot of trouble personally.  I've never been one of those people with a deep spiritual "connection".  I've never heard God speak to me in a distinct way.  I've never once felt the presence of a spiritual battle or a demon.  In fact, for a majority of my life, God seems to feel quite distant.  He's hard for me to find.

The problem, though, is that all I know how to do to fix this doesn't seem to help.  If I had to paraphrase what I was raised to know as a child, I would probably diagnose my troubles as being that I just don't believe strongly enough, or I'm not doing enough.  I need to read the Bible more, or pray more, or have more faith (aside: has that statement ever been truly helpful?  If I knew how to just have more faith, wouldn't I already have done it?).

What the church doesn't tell us very often (if ever) is that it's okay to seek.  In fact, God brings this topic up a lot in the Scriptures.  Consistently, over and over again, he gives the same promise:

"But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul." (Deu 4:29 NASB)
"...if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven.." (2Chr 7:14 ESV)
"I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me." (Pro 8:17 NASB)
"You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jer 29:13 NASB)
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Mat 7:7 NASB)
"God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." (Acts 17:27 NIV)

Point blank: if you look for God, you will find him.  And you know what's really beautiful about those promises?  Not one time does the Bible require that you look for God in a certain way or place.  The Creator of the world all everything in it does not limit himself to being found by mere Bible study.  If you look for God in creation, you'll find him.  If you look in science, you'll find him there, too.  If you look in history, or art, or in whatever truly speaks to you, he will meet you there.  There's a fantastic lyric in a song that I like that sums this idea up pretty well:

"Don't try to change who you are / because who you are is how I made you to discover Me."

So don't get discouraged when God seems distant.  There will always be times when that's true.  It's not a reflection of your faith, or effort—and sometimes nothing to do with your behavior, either.   Keep searching.  If your heart is honest and earnest, God will meet you where you are.

Symptoms and Cures

Right near my office, there’s a great place I love to eat: DoubleDave’s.  It’s cheap pizza at its best, and I can eat about a pie and a half on a good day (always skip the crust, it’s just dead weight).  Right next door to it, though, is a shop that troubles me.  It’s one of those little stores that’s selling “vape” paraphernalia.

I’m sure you’ve seen similar places by now.  This new “safe” alternative to cigarettes is all the rage and these shops are popping up like particularly aggressive dandelions.  It’s not the shop in and of itself that gets me, though, it’s the slogan.  Printed in broad letters across the window are the words “COMBAT YOUR HABIT”, implying that by swapping your cancer sticks out for new technology, you win at life.

The problem with this slogan is that it’s a complete and utter lie.

This slogan is a particularly insidious example of the world’s ability to stifle and silence shame.  The truth of the matter is that your problem is not that you smoke cigarettes—it’s that you’re addicted to nicotine.  The voice of the world whispers, saying that if you simply change the symptom; if you stop using the stuff that blatantly kills you with tar and cyanide, then you can enjoy feeding your addiction without feeling bad!  It’s just base deflection, it’s not solving anything, and it’s certainly not uplifting you as a person.  You just traded a fast death for a slow one, and one that attacks your brain instead of your lungs.

As human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, we are each given a conscience.  This conscience is used by God to speak to each of us, to nudge us back into the path we’re supposed to be on (and consequentially, closer to Christ).  The problem is that people don’t like to be told we’re wrong, and we’ll go to any length to quell the voice of guilt.  We hang out with those who indulge in similar habits, we talk openly about obviously wrong choices, we rationalize to any length to avoid having to feel bad for what we do.

I have seen this everywhere.  I once read an internet article regarding one of the most heinous, unnatural sins I’ve ever heard of, and the way it went about this was as blatant as it should be unsettling.  “After your first time”, the article said (I’m paraphrasing, of course), “you’ll feel a sense of guilt.  You’ll most likely feel ashamed, like you did something horribly wrong and disgusting.  This is normal.  It’s just the way society has conditioned you to feel.” (emphasis added)

What an artistic lie!  Sin has never been anything but sin, and we all know what’s right and wrong.  Modern society didn’t just decide that cheating on your wife is taboo.  It wasn’t after the Enlightenment that murder became frowned upon.  The feminist generation didn’t tell us that pornography is a debasement of women and sexuality.  These things have never been right, and never have the actions been accepted at first blush.  Someone has always had to fight to silence their own conscience first.  And because man knows right from wrong in his heart, he stands condemned by it.

“Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17, NASB)

“…holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith. (1 Tim 1:19, ESV)

What in your life do you feel guilty about?  Might there be a reason for that?  The Bible should convict you of things you’re guilty about; that’s part of its purpose—but as always, the news doesn’t end there.  There’s always forgiveness and mercy for those who show humility and repent.  Try it out.  Talk to God about what comes to mind.

Necessity

Necessity is the mother of invention.

It’s an old phrase, and largely, it’s true.  I think, though, that maybe we don’t give it enough scope in our daily lives.  It has applications far beyond the realm of inventions and gadgetry.  In fact, I think I might make it even more true with just a simple word selection:

Necessity is the mother of change.

When life is good, we tend to live in our ruts.  After all, nothing’s broken, so why fix it, right?  The problem is simply that ruts don’t keep things from deteriorating.  A good CEO knows that what works today might just only work because the opposition isn’t forcing your hand at that time.  It holds just as true in business as in regular life that if you aren’t moving forward, then you’re falling back.  The comfortable ruts get dug a little deeper each day.  And then it hits: we’re in it in a bad way, but how to get out?  The tire tracks are so deep we can’t turn either way, we’re locked into the path we’ve chosen, no matter where it’s leading us.

Recently, my wife and I re-watched Iron Man 3, which I think is a pretty darn awesome movie.  In it, though, there’s a line.  It’s a good line, even if it is really cheesy coming from the villain.  “You gave me the greatest gift of all: desperation.”  Of course, the bad guy uses it as justification to do awful things, but the fact is that without that push, his goals might never have been achieved.  The Bible says something similar to that, strangely enough.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:3 (NASB)

Poor in spirit refers to someone who is brokenhearted, someone who genuinely grieves over something, who would give anything to alter the circumstances of their life at that time.  Those who are not poor in spirit over the state of their lives don’t feel the need to change.  Those who don’t feel the need to change don’t see the purpose in trusting in a higher power than themselves.  Ergo, those who don’t need Jesus don’t inherit his kingdom.  God has pretty intense plans for all of us, ones that our human minds could not possibly foresee or comprehend beforehand (1 Cor 1:15, Jer 29:11), but he will not meet anyone on terms that they try to dictate.  God demands that we come to him looking for HIS best, not ours.  That’s why this verse is the first thing Jesus says to the masses in his famous sermon; because everything else God has planned for our lives—peace, joy, prosperity, love, salvation, grace—all hinges on that idea of desperation.  We have to come to God continually, expecting nothing, asking for everything.  God wants to give you freedom, in whatever shape his will gives it.

So, how bad do you want it?