Jesus
answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for
this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth
listens to me.” “And what is truth?” Pilate asked. Then Pilate went back
outside to the people and said to them, “I cannot find any reason to condemn
him.” – Jesus and Pilate (John
18:37-38 TEV)
In this exchange is the summary of
preaching the Gospel to the blind world.
“Here is the Truth, right in front of you!”
“What truth?”
Those who would be blind don’t see it. Yet
those who hunger for truth will. Many don’t know they are hungry for it. Others
have searched their whole lives for it and never find it until someone exposes
them to it. But that is always the exchange: Those who know the truth must share
it with others; those who don’t know it have to decide whether or not they will
receive it. If they will receive it, then God will reveal it to their hearts IF
they will hunger and thirst for it.
Why is Truth so elusive? Because Truth is
not a list of beliefs or statements or mathematical formulas that can simply be
memorized. It is not a philosophical system or the end of a journey where you
can arrive and then be done. Truth is a Person-Jesus Christ– and knowing the Truth is a relationship. Just as getting
to know a person takes time, getting to know Jesus can happen no faster. It
happens day by day, meeting with Him, walking with Him, talking with Him,
listening to Him, being with Him, and obeying Him.
Even if it takes all of eternity to get to
know Him, there can never be a better use of our time. Where is the time for
bitterness, hatred, depression, power mongering, judging others, and drawing
lines between people if we are consumed with getting to know Jesus? If we are
all busy searching for Truth and loving others as Jesus told us to, there are
worlds of problems we will never get into, and there are worlds of problems we
will help solve.
“For
by whom has truth ever been discovered without God? By whom has God ever been
found without Christ? By whom has Christ ever been explored without the Holy
Spirit? By whom has the Holy Spirit ever been attained without the mysterious
gift of faith?- Tertullian, Christian father and
apologist
I am
the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me.
-Jesus (John14:6)
Okay so obviously I didn’t write all of
that. It all came from pages 14 and 15 of the book Jesus Freaks II written by
dc Talk. As I’m on this 11 month “mission trip” I have discovered something so
much deeper than religion and I felt like this just put all of my thoughts in
one very well put together statement.
