What we all should be in pursuit of and cherish when we find it for what it is truly worth.
Remember, the darker it gets, the brighter and farther our little light shines!
Maranatha, Lord come quickly!
myblessedhope
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By Gene Lawley
Jesus said, in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Free from what? If freedom is the goal, then bondage is what must be overcome, and if the truth would set us free, then a lie holds us in bondage. There seems to be no one-sided issues out there—it’s yes or no, right or wrong, good or bad, up or down, front or back, etc. Some wise person figured it out—for every action there is a responding reaction.
The truth has greater authority than a lie, therefore it can break the hold of bondage and set a person free. Therefore, when Jesus answered the devil’s temptations with quoted Scripture (i.e. “it is written”), He was also showing believers how to combat the lies of the enemy—Satan. Jesus made the astounding claim, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6) yet many otherwise intelligent people deny emphatically that it could be so.
I submit that if someone could produce viable evidence that their alternate provider of salvation has died on a cross in fulfillment of those foreshadowing blood sacrifices recorded in the pages of the Old Testament, then show us the nail marks in his hands and we perhaps could be swayed toward that possibility! There is not even a shred of a possibility for that to happen. The only alternatives ever produced are merely guidelines for human effort. Cain saw that would not work, even at the very beginning of humanity!
John wrote in his first epistle, “…no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:20), that is, the truth cannot have any shadow of doubt in it. That is why the Ten Commandments are not just ten suggestions, and why Jesus affirmed God’s edict in His answer to the devil’s first temptation, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
In that John 8 passage, Jesus began at verse 31, saying, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed,” and in verse 36, He adds, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” It is the lie of Satan that opposes the truth, with deception continually repeated over the centuries to bring people into bondage to sin through lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Because the truth of Jesus Christ, claimed by a person, Paul could write in Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
In the pursuit of the truth of God, one must come to realize a very basic starting point. Recently I posted a three-part article on the Beatitudes from Matthew 5, and that first Beatitude nails it down pretty tightly. One must realize he is spiritually in deep poverty and in great need of God’s mercy and grace. To the religious scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem, Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Mark 2:17). Jesus was seen eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, and they were critical of Him for it. I suspect that Jesus may have been giving them a back-end message in saying that, for He knew those self-righteous hypocrites needed repentance as much as did those with Him.
Considering Some Key Principles
One of my uncles once was frustrated about the structure of the Bible (he was not a born-again believer). He complained that it would have made more sense to organize it like an encyclopedia, with everything about a topic in its own section. I admit that he had a point, but the (more…)
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