Did you ever talk with people about faith and the truth of God and they said: ‘What is truth? Something that is true for you, is not necessarily true for me!’ Or: ‘Well, if your beliefs are working for you, if that’s the truth for you… that’s fine, but I see things differently!’ The overall idea seems to be– sometimes even among Christians – that absolute truth of God does not exist; they say truth depends on people and their views; it’s a personal thing, they say.
A personal thing?
How do you think about that? Is truth an absolute, or is it possible for everyone to have his or her own view on the
truth of God? And what if that what is true today is no longer true tomorrow? Is truth ever changing and is that okay? Is it even relevant? For some people truth has to do with feelings; when something feels good it is true and when not, it cannot be true. But what are the consequences when you think that way? Because honestly, that can be quite dangerous… a bit like walking down a slippery road.
Truth is a Person
Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle.
Psalms 43,3
The word truth, used in Psalms 43,3 is the Hebrew word ‘emeth’ and means stability, certainty, trustworthiness, truly right, assuredly, established, faithfulness… Wow… just ponder that for a while and you see clearly that God’s kind of truth has nothing to do with swaying feelings. It is not like one day it’s this and the next day the other. God’s truth is stable, certain, to be trusted, right today and right tomorrow, faithful and true!
Moreover, truth is also a Person. John 14, 6 says: ‘Jesus answered: “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”’ Jesus is the Truth… He is the personification of all the meanings of truth mentioned above. He is also called the Light of the world. Light [‘or’ in Hebrew] means: the opposite of darkness. There is no shred of darkness in Him.
Stand firm
‘Oh, send out Your light and truth. Let them lead me’ is a prayer we need to pray, now more than ever, especially because it can be a challenge nowadays to speak about absolute truth. The apostle Paul already warned us that the time would come that people rather believe a lie than the truth (2 Thess.2). We need to cling to God’s stability and trustworthiness. Also, Paul shows us the importance of truth in Ephesians 6:14 ‘Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist’… Paul had been in prison various times and no doubt he had seen Roman soldiers in their army gear many times and he used that as an example for the people in Ephesus.
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist
The first thing a soldier put on was his belt over his daily garment, also when not on duty. But when on duty every piece of his armor was adjusted to this belt, the breastplate the shield and weapons. Paul uses this as an example to show that the belt of truth is the first essential part of the armor… and in a spiritual sense we should clothe ourselves the same way, always wearing the belt of truth, and adjusting everything to that: the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith with which one can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And of course we take the helmet of salvation, to protect our head against the lies of the enemy, and we take the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests…. (see Eph.6:6-10).
He is trustworthy
Maybe you think: ‘what a stern blog this time.’ It is not in my heart to be stern, but let’s keep in mind what it means to know more about God’s truth: He is a person, His name is Jesus, our Savior. He is nour Light and our Truth, our example to follow. He is stable and trustworthy at all times and:
Hallelujah, He has overcome the evil one.
Read also: Where is your God now?
