1 Corinthians 13:6 “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth”
1 John 3:18 “Let us not love with words or kind speech but with actions and in truth”
I have had several conversations lately that revolve around the word “truth”. Back in 2016, in response to the current political arena, the media coined the term “alternate truth” and lately a lot of people seem to be using the phrase “you have your truth, and I have mine”. Opinion articles these days seem to be taken as “truth”, and information from Facebook and other social media sites have become source material for news and information as being fact and truth. We all know that truth is found on the internet, right…
My family is currently working through some stuff. The kind of stuff that makes an old-fashioned guy like myself uncomfortable. The details are not important- every family has their stuff. As my wife and I reach out to our friends and family searching for support and wisdom I made an alarming observation. Most people and I should clarify- nonchurch people, just simply offer up the cliché that this is the way the world is now. Some people want me to simply tolerate the way things are. Overwhelmingly, people are simply accepting of our current social “norms” and just let time roll on by. No truth to be found.
Then there is my church family. To them, truth is firmly rooted in the Bible. Truth is unchanging. Truth is not based on the individual emotion or the feeling of the day. Truth is just as sound today as it was to a Christian back in Jesus’ time 2000 plus years ago. Truth is found in the bible as the Living Word of God.
My church family stepped up and did not step back, because they know unquestioningly that truth is rooted in the Bible. Sometimes truth is not what you want to hear, and true truth might not be popular with society. It is always easier to make someone feel good than speak truth into their life, but no one from our church did that. In fact, quite the opposite. we were pointed to the truth in a very loving way. Many of our church family pointed us to good sound Bible-based articles, books, and videos. Acceptance of the current world view was nowhere to be found.
We have relationships with many in our church and without those relationships this stuff we are going through would have been considerably more difficult to grapple with. We are created to be a part of a community and I am truly blessed to be a part of an incredible, loving community. It is those relationships that must exist before truth can be spoken into another’s life.
In our world, today I would direct you to one of the most reassuring videos I watched on truth. It is a sad state of our affairs where a title like “True Truth” needs to exist, but it does exist and I found it very helpful to re-center myself around God’s truth. You can do a Google search for Steve Lawson, “True Truth” and it should come right up.
As Jesus told his disciples in John 8:31-32, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
-Steve E