The Call to Walk in Truth

Without love, we are nothing but noisy gongs. (See 1 Corinthians 13:1)

And the Bible is clear, love is the answer. Anyone who calls themselves a Christian but doesn't love others, is living a lie. The call to love in scripture is a call to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, our neighbors, and even our enemies. Read your Bible. Love is the number one trait that must identify who we are.

But unless we speak truth, we really are not showing love.

The Apostle John has much to say to us about truth.

2 John 1:4
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.

3 John 1:3-4
For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

John 14:16-17
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Truth is so important, that God sent us the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, to dwell within us.

But the world is filled with untruth, with lies. Some are clearly lies. Some are harder to distinguish. The world will tell you that there are gray areas and those things we can address with compromise to the truth. That is not from God, it is from the devil.

John 8:44
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Christians, we must speak truth. We must stand in truth. God's word is the only legitimate source of truth. The Spirit of truth indwells every true believer. Jesus is the truth.

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

Truth is under attack, in these weird and difficult days, that has become even more clear.

What should we do?

Walk in truth.

The Excuse of Our sin

“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded.” That is a quote from an 18^th century poet named Alexander Pope and it really nails home the reality of what we do when we make excuses.

Excuses have been the tool of mankind since the very beginning when Eve took the first bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. God was explicit in the command when he told Adam and Eve, they could eat of any tree in the garden but the one in the middle. And after they got caught by God, both made an excuse.

Adam’s excuse was that she gave it to him.

Genesis 3:12
The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

Eve’s response was also to blame someone else.

Genesis 3:13
Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

The simple truth is that both knew better. God had spoken directly to them. Thus, was born the excuse. And we haven’t let up since. We make excuses for everything these days. It is a culture of, “It’s not my fault.” We make up little reasons for why we do what we do and why we don’t do what we ought. We are lying about our own responsibility.

There are as many excuses as there are sins and we Christians are just as guilty as the non-believers. It’s crazy that we do this because it really isn’t necessary. When we sin against God, we have an advocate, Jesus, who sits at the right hand of the Father. Jesus paid the price of our sins and the process of repentance and forgiveness is not based on our faithfulness, but on God’s.

1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But when we fail to fully confess our sins by excusing them? We are saying we really aren’t responsible. Read the follow up to 1 John 1:9;

1 John 1:10
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

Sadly, the modern church seems reluctant to preach the message of sin these days. Instead, the messages are soft and under the excuse of not offending anyone, afraid they won’t come to receive the Gospel, they preach a one-sided message of love that is mostly void of the truth of God’s justice and His hatred of sin.

One of these excuse that I hear from brothers and sisters in Christ these days when the topic of personal sin comes up, is that sanctification is a process. Sure, we are called to become like Christ, but not today, they cry. It takes time.

Ok, I agree, it does. But that is not an excuse for your sin. It does not give us the freedom to keep living in the same sins. We cannot live out the Christian life and expect God’s blessings when we excuse our sin.

God hates our sin. He does. And, while His mercy and grace flow lavishly upon us through the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, He still commands us to obey His commands. Samuel warned Saul of this very thing.

1 Samuel 15:22
Samuel said, "Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.

His message gets even harder in the next verse.

1 Samuel 15:23
"For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king."

 

Purposely excusing our sin and as seen above, even trying to make up for it through sacrifice or giving and serving, is not what God wants from us. He wants obedience. He even sent His Holy Spirit to live in us and we have the power to obey. We have God’s power to overcome. We need to stop making excuses.

 

The Word of God has provided the instructions on how we are to live. The Sprit of God has provided the power. We are without excuse. It is time we preach the truth. It is time we encourage each other to walk in the Spirit. It is time we not be offended by talk of holiness and when confronted with the scriptures, it is time we listen to God.

 

I close with a very important warning that we must adhere to.

 

2 Timothy 4:1-5
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.  But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

 

Do reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

 

Don’t tickle ears.

 

Preach the Word.

How To Find Truth In A World of Lies

As I have been traveling through the Gospels each morning in my personal Bible study, it strikes me how much emphasis the Bible puts on truth. The opposite of truth is of course, the lie. On the surface, it seems black and white. Something is either true or it is false. But the world we live in is not that simple. There is another word that creates a blur in our quest for truth versus lie; it is the word deception.

Someone in the world is always trying to deceive us. Advertising is often an attempt to get us to purchase something, we don’t want or usually, don’t need. Politics, well, having just spent the last 3 months listening to the TV ads, have clearly become about each candidate spending more effort to make us see that the other guy is a terrible person who cannot be trusted, than it is about one declaring his own merits. It has become almost impossible to know what the truth is based on what we see on TV or read in our mail, about the different candidates. Social media has become the source many people get their information from, on just about every topic. And our culture continues to buy into the falsehoods that reside on the internet. Truth is hard to come by.

If you think about it, the Bible presents the battle of truth versus untruth, as one of the salient points of its history. The very fall of mankind, the entry of sin into the world, came about because of a battle for truth and that battle was fought with the weapon of deception.

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

The serpent, Satan himself, casts doubt on what Eve thought was the truth. Did God REALLY say that? Have you ever had someone do that to you? This is a subtle form of deception and falling into that trap pulls us away from the truth. Listen to Eve’s explanation to God after she disobeyed Him.

Genesis 3:13
Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The serpent deceived her. And the battle that we all wrestle with today is filled with the serpent’s work of deception. The Bible describes our enemy in Revelation 12:9 , “…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…”.

Jesus gives a stronger description of the devil here in John 8:44-45, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”

Satan does not stand in truth. He is a liar and the father of lies. And the modern-day culture of the internet, has given him a world-wide platform to work his deception. I believe that since the advent of the smartphone giving us continual access to information, we are becoming conditioned to believe whatever we read. It simply too easy to assume what we read is true. Of course, as one who grew up in the sixties, I also was not always reading or being taught the truth. But we made attempts to research things. I was taught to question and to seek evidence before making decisions. My parents raised me to think for myself and I was not afraid to challenge authority if I had credible reason to do so.

Truth is hard to determine. Personally, unless I was an eyewitness to an event, I lean towards carrying some doubt as to the veracity of things I hear of. But what about our faith? Can we believe the things we hear in church? Can we trust our pastors, our Sunday school teachers, or any other Christian when they discuss the Christian faith?

The first step all Christians must take in their personal quest for truth is to not buy into the post-modern philosophy that truth is relative. It is not. There is a truth. There is a right and there is a wrong. If you say you are a follower of Christ, then you have no choice but to accept the Bible as the Word of God, because if you cast any doubt on what it says, you have no credible reason to even believe Jesus is who He says He is. The Bible is the only source for knowing who Jesus was or is. No other document from the ancient days is going to tell you He is the Messiah, He is the Son of God, and He is God. As Christians, we accept the Bible as God’s Word. There is also good news here; there is solid archeological evidence that we can study that give us reassurance of its being, what we believe it to be. If you are a young Christian who needs to get familiar with the Biblical evidence, there are many great resources to be found. Do the work.

The next step in the battle for truth is to read the scriptures and find out who God is, what He is like, and what He calls on His church to be. What you will learn is that Jesus is the truth. Jesus declares this Himself in John 14:6 saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus is the truth.

If Jesus is the truth and Satan is the deceiver and father of lies, then the battleground is clear. We are fighting a war for truth. Anything that is not of Christ is a lie. Jesus warns us over and over in scripture to not be deceived. The end times spoken of in the Revelation, will be a time of deception. Paul spoke of this deception as well.

2 Corinthians 11:12-15
And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.  For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

The warnings are clear, and they are scary. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. This means we cannot simply believe what anyone says, no matter how many Bible degrees they have. No, I am not saying you can never trust your pastor. I am saying you must be reading your own Bible and testing everything against scripture. Everything. This is not me speaking, it is what God’s Word commands us to do.

1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.

Test everything. As I started this blog, I mentioned my current studies. As I read Jesus talk about the coming of the end times, when He returns, I cannot help but wonder if all this internet, fake news, and other stuff people fall for, is part of Satan’s preparatory battle plan to lure people into a state of deception. He seems to be molding the world into a place where the truth is so blurred, he thinks no one will believe God. Did God really say that?

We must become seekers of truth. Prepare for this battle by training in truth. Open your Bible every day. Then when the deceiver comes, you will be ready. Stand for truth. Stand for Jesus. This means we don’t believe things simply because someone says them. We don’t simply buy into what the internet tells us.

Stand for truth. Be a diligent seeker of facts. Start with God’s Word. The days are soon coming when the great deception will be upon us. Prepare yourselves and those under your personal authority. Look to Jesus in all things. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life.

Have a blessed day.

What We Do When We Find Ourselves Doubting Jesus

Since faith is the way we please God and the only way to salvation, we Christians don’t like to express that we sometimes have doubts. Of course, God knows our thoughts before we think them, so we are not fooling Him. Trying to fool others is just prideful and trying to fool ourselves? Well, that is just silly. But there is a wonderful story in the Bible that shows us that doubt is sometimes going to pop up.

We find this story in Luke 7;18-23 and in Matthew 11:2-6.

In the story, we find John, stuck in a prison for simply being obedient to the call he was given by God. Listen to John’s question of doubt.

Luke 7:18-19
The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

John, the one who baptized Jesus and then personally saw the heavens open, the Spirit of God come down from them, and rest upon Jesus. John, the one who was filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb, and the same John who once said this about Jesus, John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” This John expressed doubt later in his life.

Doubt isn’t something we should hold on to, for it will take away your joy if left unfettered. So, what do we do with doubt? The answer is simple. We do as John did and take it to Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith. We pray when we doubt. Then we open His Word to hear the truth about the questions we have. Then we believe God. We believe the Word. The Word is Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)

Listen to the wonderful words of the psalmist who instructs us in how to fight doubt.

Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

God spoke to Joshua and instructed him how not to doubt that he could lead the nation Israel.

Joshua 1:7-8
Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.  This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

The Book of the law must depart from our mouths. We must follow the straight path it lays out. We need to be always thinking about its truth so that we may follow how God has instructed us to live.

Peter said this in 2 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”

The knowledge of Him comes through the Word of God. It is the place we must go to remove all doubt.

Studies In Matthew - Confronting Hypocrisy

My morning time with God this morning found me in Matthew, chapter 23. This is the section in which we find Jesus confronting the Scribes and the Pharisees with their hypocrisy. That the very leaders of the Jewish people would be such hypocrites, was very important to Jesus, so much so that He spoke out against them and pronounced seven woes against them.

It is tempting to see this section in only its immediate context and to shake our heads at these horrible men. But do we really think that the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to record this narrative simply, so we could applaud Jesus for putting these bad men in their places?

1 Corinthians 10:6 reminds us why we have these stories. It says that “these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”

The Word of God is not just a story about the history of the Jews; it is God’s Word written so that those who are Born Again will know what God expects us to be like as we grow in our faith. There is a spiritual lesson for us here as well. Actually, there are many. This morning I want to share a story from the Holman New Testament Commentary, written by Stu Weber.

I pray this speaks to your heart as it did mine. As Christians, we are to be watching over each other. We are to be encouraging each other as we seek to run the race Paul reminds us to be running. That race is the race to holiness. Sometimes we need to encourage each other by speaking the truth in love. Love without truth and truth without love is not pleasing to God. Sometimes it means that we must simply say what needs to be said.

Please read this story. Please read Matthew 23 and search your own heart. The world needs to see Christ. But Jesus is no longer walking this earth in His physical body. He left us His Holy Spirit so that in us, the world could see Jesus. The religious leaders though they were leading the people down the path to God. They were not. They were hypocrites. Our witness to the world is not received by the words we speak; it is received by the life we live. This is why James said that faith without works is dead. This why he told us to be DOERS of the Word not just hearers. This why sometimes we Christians need to gently, in love, confront each other with the truth of God’s Word.

Now, as Paul Harvey would say, The rest of the story…

Hypocrisy Confronted

It happened during my high school days at a state leadership camp. It was unforgettable. For the first time in my memory, I had stood up—in public—to confront hypocrisy.

Several hundred high school student-body officers were being trained for their senior tenure. About a dozen of us were housed in one cabin just about right for a couple of guys to doze off, a couple to read, and the rest of us to engage in developing a healthy "group dynamic." In other words, we told stories and hooted at their craziness into the wee hours.

One stretch involved an hour or more of "can-you-top-this" jokes and stories. I found myself unable to participate so I lay quiet in the darkness, hoping the others would think I had fallen asleep. One voice in particular, from the top bunk on the west wall, seemed to dominate the off-color conversation.

When the conversation shifted to things that mattered, the guys began to discuss "religion," real spiritual issues, and eventually their own hearts. It was amazing. Christ and the Christian faith became the center of discussion.

But the majesty of that healthy dialogue was broken when the same voice from the top bunk on the west wall chimed in. Unable to remain silent and wanting to be included with the "in" crowd, he declared: "Oh, yeah, I am a Christian too!"

His loud "about face" disturbed me. To go from off-color jokes to spiritual bliss in one easy breath was more than I could handle. Suddenly I heard my own voice breaking the silence: "Well, if I claimed to be a Christian and had just finished spouting off a bunch of off-color stories, I sure would not be advertising my faith."

My heart was pounding! I had done it! What was going to happen now? As it turned out, not much. The cabin went dead silent. I was sure the other guys could hear my heart pounding. But I do not recall anyone saying another word that night. Nor the next day. My impetuous, angry comment had just ended it all. Camp broke up. We returned to our homes. And that was the end of that; or so I thought. Years went by—through college, then the military and Vietnam, followed by seminary. I never thought another thing about the incident.

Fifteen years later I was walking on the sidewalk of a seminary campus when a voice from across the lawn called a loud hello. The guy asked if I had been at a particular high school leadership camp and involved in a certain conversation. I realized that was the person from that top bunk on the west wall. He proceeded to rehearse the exchange that night and described the discomfort of the silence that followed. "Yes, that was me," I admitted.

Then, in a wonderful moment of confession and a genuine statement of gratitude, he thanked me for my comments in that cabin on that night long ago. He told me that the shock of having his hypocrisy pointed out had begun his turnaround. Those uncomfortable moments in that cabin fifteen years ago had played a significant role in his commitment to Christ. He was now on a seminary campus, studying for vocational Christian ministry. It was a wonderful conclusion to a long-forgotten story.

There comes a time when we need to confront hypocrisy. In the flow of Matthew's Gospel, that time had arrived. Jesus was going to confront the hypocrisy of Israel's religious leaders. In a loud voice, blunt and truthful, the Lord of heaven confronted the hypocritical religious leaders.

Confronting hypocrisy may turn the hypocrite around. But even when it does not, it serves to protect others who might become victims of the hypocrisy.

Story taken from the Holman New Testament Commentary - Matthew. Written by Stuart K. Weber

 

 

The Purity of Truth - The Battle of Our Day

If there is one thing sure in this media driven world we live in today, it is that truth is under attack. It has been rightfully called an age of post-modernism or an age of relativism. Put in simpler terms, we live in a day when many believe there is no absolute truth. What is right for me, is not necessarily right for you, is the mantra of our times.

The Bible speaks a different message. It has a lot to say about truth. The Christian faith is founded upon truth. Listen to the Biblical description of who Jesus is by His own declaration in John 14:6, “Jesus said “"I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus is the truth.

The battle against truth began in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s temptation came through his casting doubt on the command God had given Adam and Eve about what trees they could and could not eat from.

Genesis 2:16-17
The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

Satan suggested Eve question the truth of what God had said.

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

“Has God said?” That was the question the devil put before Eve and it was just enough doubt for her to deviate from the truth. And once truth has even an iota of untruth in it; it becomes untruth. And in that little deviation from the truth, sin entered the world and through it the curse of sin lives in all of us.

You see truth is pure. Truth has no imperfection in it. But once the smallest amount of untruth mixes with truth, the purity is gone. Thus, by definition, truth that is no longer pure, is no longer truth.

And this is the way that Satan operates, even today. Just as Jesus states that He is the truth and operates only in truth, Satan operates by deception. That battle for truth that began in the very beginning of man’s time on earth, rages on today. 1 Timothy 4:1-2 speaks of this battle in the later times warning us that, “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”

Satan operates in deception and in lies. He deceives us by surrounding truth with just enough untruth to draw us in. But truth is pure and if we allow Satan to taint truth in the smallest of ways, we end up in untruth. Truth is pure.

The solution to fighting the enemy is found within the wearing of the spiritual armor as seen in Ephesians, chapter six. We are to put on the belt of truth. And we are to use the Sword of the Spirit to strike down the lies. 1 John 4:6 teaches us that there are two spirits at work in our world and how we are to fight the battle. It says that “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

We must be masters of the sword; the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And the way to understanding the truth of God’s Word is through the Holy Spirit, who is promised to all true followers of Jesus.

John 14:16-17  

"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The devil is the spirit of untruth.

Truth is pure, and it must remain pure otherwise it becomes untruth. 

Psalm 119:159-160
Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness. The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting. 

I leave you with a short prayer from the psalms. Make it your prayer this very day.

Psalm 86:11-12
Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever. 

Keep truth pure, lest it becomes untruth.

If there is one thing sure in this media driven world we live in today, it is that truth is under attack. It has been rightfully called an age of post-modernism or an age of relativism. Put in simpler terms, we live in a day when many believe there is no absolute truth. What is right for me, is not necessarily right for you, is the mantra of our times.

The Bible speaks a different message. It has a lot to say about truth. The Christian faith is founded upon truth. Listen to the Biblical description of who Jesus is by His own declaration in John 14:6, “Jesus said “"I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus is the truth.

The battle against truth began in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s temptation came through his casting doubt on the command God had given Adam and Eve about what trees they could and could not eat from.

Genesis 2:16-17
The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

Satan suggested Eve question the truth of what God had said.

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 

“Has God said?” That was the question the devil put before Eve and it was just enough doubt for her to deviate from the truth. And once truth has even an iota of untruth in it; it becomes untruth. And in that little deviation from the truth, sin entered the world and through it the curse of sin lives in all of us.

You see truth is pure. Truth has no imperfection in it. But once the smallest amount of untruth mixes with truth, the purity is gone. Thus, by definition, truth that is no longer pure, is no longer truth. 

And this is the way that Satan operates, even today. Just as Jesus states that He is the truth and operates only in truth, Satan operates by deception. That battle for truth that began in the very beginning of man’s time on earth, rages on today. 1 Timothy 4:1-2 speaks of this battle in the later times warning us that, “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”

Satan operates in deception and in lies. He deceives us by surrounding truth with just enough untruth to draw us in. But truth is pure and if we allow Satan to taint truth in the smallest of ways, we end up in untruth. Truth is pure.

The solution to fighting the enemy is found within the wearing of the spiritual armor as seen in Ephesians, chapter six. We are to put on the belt of truth. And we are to use the Sword of the Spirit to strike down the lies. 1 John 4:6 teaches us that there are two spirits at work in our world and how we are to fight the battle. It says that “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

We must be masters of the sword; the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And the way to understanding the truth of God’s Word is through the Holy Spirit, who is promised to all true followers of Jesus.

John 14:16-17  

"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The devil is the spirit of untruth. 

Truth is pure, and it must remain pure otherwise it becomes untruth.

Psalm 119:159-160
Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness. The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.

I leave you with a short prayer from the psalms. Make it your prayer this very day.

Psalm 86:11-12
Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever. 

Keep truth pure, lest it becomes untruth.

How Do I Now I Am Really a Christian - Sheep and Goats, Wheat and Tares. How Do I Know the Difference (Part 3)

How do I know if I am really a Christian? According to research, almost 80% of Americans lay claim to that title. Yet, when we look out into the world and we compare the behaviors of those claiming to be Christian and those not, we just see little difference between the groups. Divorce, children being born out of wedlock, addictions of all types, and many other behaviors that the world exhibits, appear to be just as prevalent in the Christian as in the world.

Well, we claim, we might be Christians, but we aren’t perfect yet. Sanctification is the process of becoming like Christ and it is a life-long work. Yes, I agree, but the Christian life is more than saying God is changing me and then continuing on as the rest of the world does.

Let me digress before discussing change in the Christian. We cannot give due justice to this conversation until we agree on what being a Christian actually means. We must define the word.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word Christian as “one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.” That seems to be a reasonable definition. Jesus defines it in a very similar way in John 8:31, saying “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” To be a Christian is to abide, to live and believe in the Word of Christ.

  

So, if we apply that definition to the word, then the logical progression in the search to determine what a Christian is, would be look to the teachings of Jesus and then find out what His teachings are. What is the Word of Jesus?  Any legitimate attempt to do so, requires a careful look at the Bible, particularly the New Testament, to find out what Jesus teaches.

Before I go on, I offer that anyone who claims to be a Christian, but rejects all of the teachings of the Bible, is not by definition a Christian. Jesus left this earth over two-thousand years ago, but since then, through archeological science, we have documents that prove out to be the ancient writings of His day. These documents were written by those who walked with Jesus in person or directly knew someone who did. If you reject the canonicity of the Bible, meaning it was inspired by God’s Holy Spirit as He moved the authors to write it, then you really have no legitimate reason to call yourself a Christian, because without the Bible, we have no reason to even believe Jesus existed. So, the first test we must make in order to determine if we, ourselves, are really a Christian, is to decide if we believe the Bible is what it claims to be.

Assuming you accept the Bible as true, if not you might as well stop reading this, then let us now begin to explore what the teachings of Jesus are, so that we can decide if we are truly a disciple of His.

The first teaching of Jesus is possibly the most important test of our belief; the deity of Christ. Simply put, Jesus claimed to be God. Do we believe that Jesus was God? The scriptures say He did. No, He didn’t walk around yelling, “I’m God, I’m God”, like some kind of insane man, but the Gospels certainly demonstrate that He held claim to being part of the triune nature of God. He was so adamant about this truth, that He died on the cross because of that claim as we see in the Gospel of John.

John 10:22-38
 At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem;  it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.  The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, "How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly."  Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me.  "But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.  "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;  and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.  "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  "I and the Father are one."  The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.  Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?"  The Jews answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God."  Jesus answered them, "Has it not been written in your Law, 'I SAID, YOU ARE GODS'?  "If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),  do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?  "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father."

The Jews wanted to stone Jesus because they said He was making Himself out to be God. Under threat of death, Jesus refuses to dispute this claim.

Another bold claim of His deity, as well as claim to being eternal, is found in John 8:57-59,

“So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”  Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”  So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Using the phrase, “before Abraham, I am”, was a reference to God telling Moses to tell the people that “I AM” sent him, as we see in Exodus, chapter three, which is one of God’s names for Himself. The Jews understood Jesus was claiming to not just be from God, but to be God. Again, Jesus makes this claim under threat of death.

The Bible is replete with many references to the claim of Jesus to be deity. Please, do your own study of the scriptures. But here are just a few verses that tell us Jesus is God.

Titus 2:13
waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

2 Peter 1:1
Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 9:6
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Romans 9:5
To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Jesus claimed to be deity and the other writers of the Bible agree. This is the first test of our Christianity, believing Jesus is God. This is why we refuse to accept the claims of other groups such as the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses, that they too, are Christians. They deny the deity of Christ, which means they deny the teachings of Jesus, Himself.

How about you? Do you believe the truth of the scriptures and follow the teachings of Christ?

More to come next time as we continue to answer the question, Am I a Christian?