Tag: faith

Becoming a Truthful Person

“Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me.”  John 14:6, NCV

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As we travel through this amazing life, we’ll experience so many things.  We engage every kind of scenario.  Much of it is good, but some will be bad.  When my Mom would give me medicine, she would often mix it with sugar.  But I could still taste the bitter, even with the added sweetness.

We have come to the place where we must swallow the truth.  We are learning to see that truth must be accepted.  We are brought to a place where we must take the truth in, and become true people.  The Word is the place where we start to assimilate what is real and true.  We are confronted “point blank” by what is real and trustworthy.  Falsehood flakes off us, and we begin to bask in the solid and eternal.

We are supposed to become people of the truth.  What is false should have no real business with us.  It is alien to the believer in Jesus.  It is a gear that no longer “syncs” in our mechanism.  We only mesh with the truth from this moment on.  We have been altered and we now see things from a brand new perspective.

We belong to the truth.  It is who we are, and nothing should distract us.  So much however assaults us, and we must focus pretty much exclusively on the things we know are authentic.  Our faith is to be bona fide and true blue.  There should be not the  slightest hint of duplicity.  We must avoid the trap of becoming fraudulent to our generation.

Each of us must accept the truth.  About ourselves, and about the unfolding of this life, about the reality of evil and salvation.  The presence of Jesus turns life upside down.  The things that were on the bottom have now moved to the top. Everything has been tilted.  It’s not surprising that we have issues as we try to sort things out.

I want to be a truthful person.  Lies and half-truths are fluent in my world.  I become inured to what is real, as I choose the lie.  And the amazing thing, is when I lie, the other person seems to know it on some deep level.  I suppose I am a terrible liar, and my attempt at sincerity only makes it worse.  I think I could make several million dollars if I could only teach people how to lie better.

Truth must become an intimate friend.  We need to be guided by what is real and sincere. “Buy truth, and do not sell it, get wisdom and instruction and understanding.” Proverbs 23:23.  There has to be a firm grip on what is true, and certainly we cannot barter it away.  Christians are to be truthful, even in a world that isn’t.

 

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A Peace That Teaches

“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God!”

Colossians 3:16-17, The Message

At times, there has to be a forceful unity in us and through us.  The idea of “tuning” yourself to someone else is a bit rattling, and even scary.  “What if they are confused, or indifferent?”  There exists a real fear of combining our hearts with another. It is a special challenge in our culture that stresses individual rights. We think ‘me’ when we should be thinking ‘we.’  We need to fall in step with someone else.

There also exists a need for us to cultivate thankfulness and gracefulness. To be blunt, this is not an easy thing.  It is most hard.  Cultivation implies so much– long days of work under a hot sun. But, if it works we will take it. For many of us, this could become our very next step in our discipleship.

This passage in Colossians seems to emphasize our real need to let the Word run furiously throughout our lives.  I have watched “The Running of the Bulls” in Pamplona. We are being chased.  But what I have seen is both beautiful and frightening.  The Book of Colossians can be like this.  So many challenges, and yet also very wonderful ones.

God’s Word however, is penultimate, it is to be supreme.  It simply demands total control of us. We are charged in these verses, to let the Word go crazy in our lives.  But it can’t rest stagnant and alone.  Rather we are to become belligerent and insistent voices that directs everything to Him. We stand, and then we reflect all of the glory to Jesus.

We learn in these two verses on the need for us to sing.  Singing can be something we grind out.  A great deal of effort exists before we can really make this take place.  But I still don’t think this is what the Apostle Paul has in mind.  Music is bound to happen inside our hearts.  We are to become saints of praise– singing saints.

Dear one, be a believer that sings.  Find your voice, and then lift it up to Him. If you have come to this point, I must believe you have truly understood His exceptional grace to you. But we also need to sing for our brothers. Countless times I have been encouraged by the songs coming from my companions of this amazing journey.

Dismantling Certain Things

“God planned for us to do good things and to live as he has always wanted us to live. That’s why he sent Christ to make us what we are.” Ephesians 2:10, CEV 

We all need to wear a sign over our hearts, “God at Work.”  The first step is “God planned.”  He has the blueprints concerning our life, and He has given our situation deep thought.  No matter what happens, it is filtered through His consideration.

The next phrase, “to do good things.”  We need to pipe goodness through our lives.  Goodness is what we have to offer.  Essentially, we just transmit “goodness” to everyone we meet, as we know the itinerary of our lives are His arrangement.  The faces we see that come before us, are part of the Father’s plan.

The next phrase, “to live as he always wanted us to live.”  First, this establishes that He wants something.  He looks and sees only a very few that are really willing to let their lives reflect His wonderful presence.  His sincere idea is that we initiate His presence, and allow Him to work through us.  He wants this.  He wants us to live our lives characteristic of Him.

The very next phrase, “that’s why he sent Christ.”  It is at this point we enter into things that are beyond us.  As we reflect, we start to understand the Father’s complete rationale in sending Jesus to die like He did.  As we consider this, we truly enter in something totally beyond us.  This is something far and away we could never initiate on our own.

“That’s why he sent Christ to make us what we are.”  Jesus had been “triggered.”  His intention was to guide us to the Father.  He constructed a highway that would deliver us to Him.  Jesus has become the originating point where we become totally His.  He simply works in us, to make us ready to go.  The little phrase, “to make us what we are” is most interesting.  There exists in eternity a deep concern that we become what we profess.  The work of heaven is simply to bring us into His likeness.

I can only simply trust that you will process this, and start to generate an appropriate response.  The Father is very close, and He will lead you through any confusion.

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Flight Control

” But the people who trust the Lord will become strong again.
    They will rise up as an eagle in the sky; 
       they will run and not need rest; 
       they will walk and not become tired.”

Isaiah 40:31

To ‘renew’ your strength carries the idea of change– just as if you would change your clothes to go somewhere special.  The NCV translates this to “become strong again.”  I trade the clothes of weak patheticness, and wear intended strength that He gives.  God fully intends that we put on His greatness when we come before Him.

He does not want us to merely have a ‘changed life,’ but He really wants us to have an ‘exchanged life.’  He doesn’t intend to better us.  But He insists on exchanging His life for ours.  A trade if you will– the ugly for the pure, and the black for the white.    He absorbs our sin, and He gives us His righteousness.  We give Him desperate weakness, and He gives us an awesome strength.

But there is a time thing.  We will need to wait.  The transaction has already taken place.  It all has been transferred to your account.  Our waiting will never be too long.  The ultimate end will happen.  Until then, we must trust and obey, in anticipation of a wonderful thing.  We will not, or never be– ashamed.

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