“For if you embrace the truth, it will release more freedom into your lives.” John 8:32 (TPT)
While the truth will set you free, truth is costly! Usually before it sets you free it’s going to make you angry. It’s going to expose things in you, and it most likely will upset your status quo, happy life! Too many people evaluate truth by whether it makes them feel good or happy! If it doesn’t make them happy they reject it. But truth has nothing to do with our emotions, or our preferences, or whether it causes us to be happy.
Sadly, many people shop for a church by how it makes them feel. They treat church like other commodities. Like a consumer, a good church service will leave them feeling better than when they arrived. But freedom setting truth doesn’t make you feel good. The bottom line is, truth requires us to face our sin, our self-focusedness. It must lead us to the cross. It must draw us to our knees. Truth must be found in the acknowledgment of our wretched sinfulness, in desperate need of a Savior! Jesus is the way the truth and the life (John 14:6)! There is no solution or freedom apart from Him! Truth that set us free must be based on Jesus – who He is, what He has said and what He has done!
Yes, God is an emotional God, and our emotions are a beautiful thing before Him. But applying the truth, HIS TRUTH, gets us to His heart! Jesus said we were to worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:24)!
Much of the church has lost the centrality of the authority of the Word of God. The Bible, and the truth it contains, is the inspired Word of God. It is read and meditated upon by seekers of truth. Freedom is found by taking this truth and applying it to our life, even if it’s painful. God is looking for lovers who will obey His truth.
Please join me in praying for truth to be re-established in our nation. Pray for the church, starting with your own, to preach the full Gospel of truth, as found in the Word, not just a “make me happy” gospel. Ask God to stir up a hunger in you, in our city, and across our nation for truth, even at the expense of addressing the lies that we have believed or the price it will cost. Ask God to show you any place where you are believing something, anything, that stands in opposition to the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5), and then confess it and turn from it. And finally, thank Him for making this freedom bringing truth available to us, to you and me!!!
