I'm in my mini vacation right now, only because it is the last four days of school and no calls for subbing have come, and my hotel job is a weekend thing.
So, lots of reading, lots of thoughts, lots of posting on social media...
lots of cleaning, lawn work (mowing), and planning ahead.
I've been thinking about truth.
For each of us it seems that truth is different; it's colored by our experience. My truth is different from your truth.
I love my charismatic friends, I remember my "charismatic" days fondly, with a memory of great spiritual power. This is my truth. I know that Satan is a deceiver and some spiritual experiences are of the devil, but I know that God's Spirit is also at work around the globe.
I have had truths that were real, truths that colored my walk with Christ, doctrine and dogma that formed my worldview.
Objective truth is something more. By God's grace we can truly experience objective truth, or truths.
He gave us the Bible, His Word, Scripture for truth and edification. This is, above all, our only reliable source of His truth. Therefore we must measure all other truth by its words.
Not an easy task, especially without the Holy Spirit and a constant saturation in much of it.
Last night I was reading a book about geology by a young earth scientist. He mentioned several scholars and preachers of a past era where the age of the earth was brought into question. These scholars, in their limited scientific knowledge, became convinced of alternate "truths."
Naturally we know more now, scientifically, than "we" knew then. We have technology that reveals so much more about the earth and the world we live in.
Truth is changing, right?
No. Truth is always truth, and a profound truth (as my father-in-law says) is the opposite of another profound truth. Truth is the question in every heart. What is truth?
Pilate asked Jesus, and it is not recorded if Jesus answered him.
Let's step it back, though. If God created us, and we can deduce that He did, apologetically and reasonably, He has given us an aspect of our being that is a help to knowing truth.
Our conscience.
The conscience speaks to the mind and heart. It cries out that there is more... that there is reason. God pricks it when we hear truth. It convicts us when we do wrong. (Don't deny it!)
You can murder your conscience by repeatedly ignoring it.
But it still persists, born again, when faced with a new situation. It's remarkable. Scientists have tried to explain the conscience through biology and psychiatry, but there is no real explanation except the one I gave you: God made it.
It is to the conscience that I appeal, to every reader of this blog, to my own!
God gives that pin prick of conscience regarding His own infinite truth. We can try to argue, to deny, to ignore, to put off, to run from it.
God invites. He does not force. He is the God of free will. He encourages and loves, but he ultimately judges our own murder of our own conscience.
So, when truth is spoken my conscience listens.
Does yours?
It can be born again, even as you ask the Lord to save you.
So, lots of reading, lots of thoughts, lots of posting on social media...
lots of cleaning, lawn work (mowing), and planning ahead.
I've been thinking about truth.
For each of us it seems that truth is different; it's colored by our experience. My truth is different from your truth.
I love my charismatic friends, I remember my "charismatic" days fondly, with a memory of great spiritual power. This is my truth. I know that Satan is a deceiver and some spiritual experiences are of the devil, but I know that God's Spirit is also at work around the globe.
I have had truths that were real, truths that colored my walk with Christ, doctrine and dogma that formed my worldview.
Objective truth is something more. By God's grace we can truly experience objective truth, or truths.
He gave us the Bible, His Word, Scripture for truth and edification. This is, above all, our only reliable source of His truth. Therefore we must measure all other truth by its words.
Not an easy task, especially without the Holy Spirit and a constant saturation in much of it.
Last night I was reading a book about geology by a young earth scientist. He mentioned several scholars and preachers of a past era where the age of the earth was brought into question. These scholars, in their limited scientific knowledge, became convinced of alternate "truths."
Naturally we know more now, scientifically, than "we" knew then. We have technology that reveals so much more about the earth and the world we live in.
Truth is changing, right?
No. Truth is always truth, and a profound truth (as my father-in-law says) is the opposite of another profound truth. Truth is the question in every heart. What is truth?
Pilate asked Jesus, and it is not recorded if Jesus answered him.
Let's step it back, though. If God created us, and we can deduce that He did, apologetically and reasonably, He has given us an aspect of our being that is a help to knowing truth.
Our conscience.
The conscience speaks to the mind and heart. It cries out that there is more... that there is reason. God pricks it when we hear truth. It convicts us when we do wrong. (Don't deny it!)
You can murder your conscience by repeatedly ignoring it.
But it still persists, born again, when faced with a new situation. It's remarkable. Scientists have tried to explain the conscience through biology and psychiatry, but there is no real explanation except the one I gave you: God made it.
It is to the conscience that I appeal, to every reader of this blog, to my own!
God gives that pin prick of conscience regarding His own infinite truth. We can try to argue, to deny, to ignore, to put off, to run from it.
God invites. He does not force. He is the God of free will. He encourages and loves, but he ultimately judges our own murder of our own conscience.
So, when truth is spoken my conscience listens.
Does yours?
It can be born again, even as you ask the Lord to save you.
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