Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Importance of the Truth

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Jesus then said to those Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'" John 8:31-32 (NASU)

"What Christianity taught the world of ancient thought, namely, that all truth is identical with the living mind of God, is forfeited in an age that assigns God and mystery to one realm, and man and rationality to another." God, Revelation, and Authority, Carl Henry

"The apostles knew that the truth of truth, the truth of God, and the truth of the gospel stand or fall together." A Plea for Evangelical Demonstration, Carl Henry

"Truth-famine is the ultimate and worst of all famines. Unless modern culture recovers the truth of truth and the truth of God, civilization is doomed to oblivion and the spirit of man to nihilism." A Plea for Evangelical Demonstration, Carl Henry

Those of us who lay claim to a Christian worldview must of necessity take seriously the idea of and proprogation of Truth.

Truth is the cornerstone of our existence.

In a post-modern world where truth becomes a matter of subjective opinion or spin doctors, we must be ever more diligent to pursue, to know, to embrace, and to live truth.

Jesus says that truth will free us. Of course, he is right. Truth will either provide the framework from which we can address the lies in our lives and (hopefully) find the means to overcome them, or else truth will shine its blinding light of clarity on the dark spot of delusion we try so desperately to hide and will (by doing so) make known our lies and expose our darkness.

Truth will make all things known.

You cannot hide from truth. It will someday expose you.

Truth is like a laser--with pinpoint accuracy it will expose our sloppy thinking and our hidden lies while at the same time searing them off of us (sometimes with bitter results).

The problem is pursuing truth. While most humans will admit that truth is "out there," we may well disagree with a definition of what it is. The Christian says, "God is truth," and I think that is a correct answer. But wait, there's more!

Truth is saying what is real, it is saying of "what-is" that it is. Truth is admitting that reality is real, that there is some kind of objective something or absolute something out there bigger than all of us. Truth is what is real.

We hide in our half-truths, we pretend to be something we aren't, we hide our inadequacies and our failings behind lies we have built up to make ourselves look better.

Then truth walks into the room--The brilliance of the light of truth makes it hard to see at first, but then as our eyes blink back their blindness of our own self-induced lies, we began to see more clearly than we have seen in a while. All of our hidden stuff is exposed, we are known. We are scared.

Of course, if we started off diligently chasing truth and applying its spotlight to our lives BEFORE we lied, then we would not only be used to the light, we would also not have any shadows to hide.

We must start with Truth.

A famine of Truth leads to a society of lies and spin.

Such a place is not a standard of Freedom, it is a dark place of slavery to the lies that bind us.

God, give us men and women of Truth.

Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" when Truth was standing right in front of him. The world wants to seek and to find some truth, but the fact of the matter is, they want to replace the truth that they don't like with something that is nice and false.

Anonymous said...

Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" when Truth was standing right in front of him. The world wants to seek and to find some truth, but the fact of the matter is, they want to replace the truth that they don't like with something that is nice and false.