Truth

If it's truth, most won't like it! Truth offens those who deny it. Truth hurts because it is in opposition to us - the one premise, that we are not gods. That is ultimate truth!

Many philosophers have posed the question: What is truth?  Because reality is so hard to define, truth remains elusive if it must be scientifically explained. Ultimately, that is what philosophy is  - endeavoring to prove reality. Whatever the philosophy, truth will never be explained scientifically because human beings will never accept the truth.

As I sit here at the keyboard, I feel the response as I hit the keys. That is one of my senses. I taste my cappuccino as well. My taste testifies that that is truth. Essentially, I know that I am because I feel inputs to my mind, but what if all those sensory inputs are merely my mind's creation? What if I am only mind?

Of course, I feel pain but perhaps my mind creates the pain. In the end, I know that I exist because of my mind. What I accept as truth makes me exist.

Others can scientifically prove that I exist but perhaps it is only their minds which do. We interact with the world, but suppose the interaction is no more than a lucid dream? We accept that we are real because our minds accept our existence. All that we perceive makes us who we are. If we had no perception - perhaps comatose, do we exist? Science says we do not, and society agrees.

All this talk of truth is to get one to think. Our minds our limited in what we perceive, and what becomes our truth. When I tell people that they have horrendous looking creatures living in their eye-brows and lashes, they look at me with incredibility. I don't perceive them there, but microscopes seem to have revealed the monsters dwelling and feeding on me. I believe that to be true although I can't sense them at all. Others have convinced me that that is true.

I can't sense God. I can't prove his existence, but yet I believe that He is real and who He says He is. Even though everyone accepts that they are more than mind without proof, they fail to accept that God is real without being able to prove it. Although people can't perceive the mites dwelling in their own eye, they can detect God if they merely accept what they cannot see.

We can see the cosmos and giant red stars. Perhaps those are merely a projection on a dome over the world. Does that sound foolish? Not any more foolish than the belief that the earth is flat. However, we believe that there is a bizarre universe unseen to the eye - the matter of which we are told we're made. Just as the planets revolve around a great sun, inside us all, they say, are tiny electrons revolving around nuclei. I accept that as truth, although I have never seen that micro-universe.

That material universe is alleged to be my existence -  the matter that holds my mind. We can explain matter and mind, but what of our soul? I perceive my mind because I think, and I my matter makes me believe that I am real but what of my soul?

My soul is the container for God. My soul is filled with truth if God is in me. God is a God of truth. He said that I was made in His image. He called that our image! I think of me as one but I have identified matter and mind.  God says that I am different than the animals. I am told that I can be imbued with Spirit. That spirit must have a place to reside, and mankind calls that the soul. It's the container - cup, if you will, that holds the pneuma which flows from God to the Creation. Being told that, we are God's children and are in His image, God's most known attribute is His Spirit.  It's His Spirit which our mind has communion. Christians can actually sense God when they accept Him as truth - reality if you prefer.

At birth, our souls are empty. There is an unborn desire to have that container filled. Immediately pleasure starts to fill it, leaving little space for anything else. The mind becomes seemingly satisfied with pleasure, but inside the mind there exists the yearning for real meat. Our minds sense that. Perhaps yearning is another sense which cannot be measured.

God calls out: "I can sense your yearning, and I am here to fill it!" We can either accept that truth or deny it because God speaks only truth. That is circular reasoning but we seem to accept that often! Testing the existence of fact may all only be circular reasoning because we need to know.  The emptiness of the soul is a yearning to know the truth. Truth is calling to explain Himself. The emptiness of the soul welcomes God, or if we are so caught up in pleasure, we fail to sense this yearning.

Satan's way is to provide continual pleasure so that the yearning to know God - our Father, is held at bay. There is an instinctual need to know who we are. No orphan is ever satisfied not knowing his own parents. Satan, because he nourishes us with continual pleasure, becomes our father. He is always there, when we desire something, he always knows your pleasure. He knows what is in your cup, and has plenty more of the same. What he knows you like best is your stronghold. Those are the things which are so important to you,, that God is diminished in comparison.

Satan knows your heritage. You are the same as Adam who he tempted first. He knows that there is nothing new under the sun, and what tempted Adam to lust will tempt us all. As long as he provides what is our will, we will never realize God's will. Oh, we may sense it by the Spirit which calls often but we push God's will aside for our own satisfaction, never really being satisfied.

I know that I am tempted. Perhaps temptation is another sense. It must be because we can sense it. Temptation is therefore truth. It is because we are tempted and react to it. Our mind detects it although it can never be measured. There is much truth which we cannot see. It is real even though it can't be proven.

Our minds evaluate what we sense. It considers pleasure and compares it to hope. What is hope? Perhaps another immeasurable sense. I know that I have hope because I can detect it. Neither can it be measured but it is still real.

As our mind evaluates pleasure and hope, another unseen presence seeks in. Evil is its name. We can sense evil because we are somewhat receptive to the Spirit. We are not reprobate, or what psychologists call psychotic.  A new sense erupts. It makes us feel despair because it is the antithesis to temptation. It's the antibody which delivers us from future evil. It is of God as all things are. That is truth. God is always nearby, even to those whose father is the devil. When they disappoint God, He tells them how disappointed He is by His Holy Spirit. That is God convicting as He lets we realize how we are guilty. Guilt is a consequence of knowing you have wronged God. Your mind, realizing how disappointed your true Father is, ruminates unto sickness. You become disappointed in yourself. You come to realize that your other god - you, is imperfect. That is truth! We are imperfect. Everyone has sinned and come short of God's will.

Guilt makes divine criminals decide. We had the freedom to do God's will which we know by His Spirit, and our own will which temptation teases. We know it is our will, because we desire to do it. The Spirit changes our own will to God's. God wants us to sacrifice our own free will for his will. We all attempt to hang on to our own little other god and keep God at the same time. We serve two masters by doing so. We want our True Father, but our worldly father deceives us. By offering pleasure, we buy into his fatherhood. Ironically, parents in real life attempt to buy the same love by offering pleasure. In effect, they train their offspring to be children of Satan.

When we finally realize that our soul is empty, and that it must have hope, it dawns on us that Satan won't, and we can't in ourselves provide any real hope. Satan tells is that we can, but we can't. That is truth. We are born-again when we conclude that all this time, God offered hope, and we constantly rejected it. Our mind realizes - perhaps another sense, that we have been deceived. True hope lies not in ourselves, and it must come from elsewhere. Hope is very real and it can be terribly sensed when it is absent. Psychologists call this divine emptiness depression. The truth is, it's lack of eternal hope.

Depression is the extreme lack of purpose. Death is inevitable. There is a sense that there is nothing which can be done. Anxiety comes about when this distraught condition comes upon us: someday I will cease to exist.  Existence is of utmost importance. That is life.  We believe that we exist because of our minds. The thought of ceasing to exist seems to be unreal, but Satan plants within our minds to accept that as fate.  Ceasing to exist is deterministic. It creates a fear of death. Satan loves our misery, and tells us to accept his pleasure, that we have but one chance to enjoy it. We believe the lie!

Each time we do our own will, we obey the law of sin. It is Satan's law and we choose to follow it. It tells us, "What's the use, you will die!" On the other hand, the Law of God says, "Repent and you shall not die." We choose to believe the lie, if we even consider God, because with truth, pleasure is withheld - at least we're told. That too is a lie.

Pleasure is in the mind of the beholder. What is pleasure is in the attitude of the mind. The Spirit can clean the memories of pleasure, and give the mind a fresh start. This change in mind-set is the new creature. God changes the attitudes of the old creature back to what it was before Adam's fall. This is His new creation, and is called regeneration. When we are born-again, that's who we are to become!

Unfortunately, Satan never forgets. He remembers well how Adam rejected truth - you will die, and accepted the lie - oh, no you won't! He tempts the new creature even more than the first because he doesn't want to lose to God. Safety is a hedge which God provides to help protect the new creature from the devil's barbs.  God keeps us safe from the evil one until those who persevere are saved.

I can sense God's Safety. He comforts me. My soul becomes imbued with God. His Holy Spirit resides in me. I can sense Him. Perhaps that knowingness is a sense as well. It
is called the assurance of salvation.We know that our soul is no longer empty because our attitude changes. We go from unwilling to obey God to willing to do so, even in the face of temptation.

All these invisible and unmeasurable senses are as real as what  we can detect by the other senses. Hence, they are as much of truth as the reality of the other senses.

We must accept the truth which we know exists, and that is the reality of God. Even when our mind tells us that there is no God, our the lack of hope says there must be! Being born-again is when we accept the reality of that truth as God enlightens us!

By the way, what is this truth which I must come to realize? That I am a sinner and destined to die unless I am born again. That truth will set you free!