Truth is out there. However, truth isn't a show-off. It resides in knowledge, but it reveals itself only when knowledge is wisely displayed. Yes, truth is hidden by ignorance, ignored by knowledge and manifested by wisdom!
Truth is conformity to what's real. The question is: "What's real?" There are many theories, deceptions and lies regarding reality; but truth can be hard to swallow. People accept falsehoods because truth isn't in agreement with their own world view! As with all mankind's limitations, failure to accept truth was the "spiritual death" suffered when Eve led Adam to eat of "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". This tree was a metaphor for our two antecedents who followed the lies of the serpent Satan instead of truth, which was the fruit of "The Tree of Life"! They dishonored God by seeking to know what God knows rather than just accepting what God says as true.
Having "reason" after eating of the wrong tree is why we all fear truth. Rather than unquestioning acceptance of God's truth, mankind ever since questions his authority. We "rationalize" our own actions and behaviors by rejecting God's word and accepting lies. Lies are much easier to accept than is truth because lying is a friend of pleasure!
John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. (i.e., Jesus is God. He professed that he is). God is truth. Jesus is truth. What Jesus said is God speaking truth. Jesus is The Word. Mankind hates Jesus because Jesus speaks truth!
John 17:17 "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."Truth is how Christians are set apart into righteousness (sanctified). John goes on to say that God's word is truth! What are Christians set apart from? What's not right (unrighteousness). However, sanctification doesn't come naturally. The sinner and the Christian must seek truth. Where is it to be found? In scripture!
Finding truth in scripture is called "discernment". Those who're discerning recognize with their mental faculties that what God says conforms to reality. When God says that he created the universe and everything in it, the discerning person recognizes that if an all-powerful God can create all from nothing, that same God can create a history for it. God in his omnipotence does not conform to mankind's limited knowledge. He doesn't have to create an embryo earth and watch it grow. He created a mature earth already grown; just as he created the grown man Adam!
Thinking as that sets apart (sanctifies) the discerning person from those who like Adam and Eve, rationalize science and make God conform to man rather than man to conform to Truth (God). Science can never save us, but God can! I choose God!
What is your gift as a Christian? God doesn't change us without giving us gifts. One of the gifts all Christians must have is "discernment". We all must believe God at all costs and obey what he says regardless of what science or our own desires lead us to believe. Let's take for example sex. Everything today propagates sex and leads us to believe that it's just a mechanical biological function that's benign. God tells us how wrong it is outside marriage. Those who rationalize accept the benign function of sex, but the discerning person recognizes how holy marriage and sex is in God's eyes. Likewise, discernment works in truth in all aspects of living.
When my son went to drug rehab I became a discerning parent. I was taught how the users mind works and how common drug use is among all groups in society. With that knowledge I had new wisdom. I became able to detect the druggy wherever I went. I recognized the symptoms in many whom I love and who had previously fooled me. I became discerning. However, it hurt to be so discerning! I just didn't want to know which friends were druggies and that the world is a drug induced society. I was happier without that knowledge! Bliss is closing one's eyes to what's unpleasant. I had lived in an Ozzy and Harriet world where wrong was non-existent. Now, as I became discerning, wrong was everywhere. Drug use is prevalent and I now see that!
More so than drugs, I now discern wrong all through society because God has given me the gift of discernment. I now know that someday the world will be destroyed by evil people who appear to be loving, caring and successful. I now know that homosexuality will increase until the end comes. I now know that people will accept even aberrant behaviors as mere lifestyle choices and that there will be massive wars. I see what pleasures in life are abhorrent to God and that most people participate in those behaviors. All this insight is not fun. Knowing the Truth hurts! As a consequence, what most consider to be pleasure, I don't. I see wrong where it indeed exists. It would be fun to be able to drink heavily, party, be promiscuous without guilt and the like; but as a Christian with discernment, I'm set apart. I can't do this stuff.
Furthermore, it pains me to see those whom I love do wrong and know that if they don't change, they're going to suffer eternal punishment. I fear for my children and grandchildren. It will get worse. Will they submit to God or follow the beast? As did Jeremiah, I'm telling those I love (and the world through this blog) that we face destruction, but the world fails to listen. I'm just a small Jeremiah with few listeners, but just imagine how unpleasant the truth known to Jeremiah hurt. He knew that Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Jews dispersed, but few listened. Noah knew that the world faced destruction, but few listened. Empathize with him! Those prophets were discerning righteous people who knew truth and that truth overcame pleasure. The truth they knew hurt their ability to have fun (pleasure), but their pleasure is in eternity.
Those who discern and practice truth have eternal life in heaven. Only God knows where those are who spurn truth for pleasure:
2 Corinthians 4:18 "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."Accept Truth. Accept what is unseen. Recognize as possible those things beyond proof. Be discerning even if it hurts!
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