Word of the week: truth 1
Corinthians 13:6b
rejoices with/in the truth
– NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJ, KJ
rejoices whenever truth
wins out – NLT
Pretty nice that all of the versions agree that love
rejoices with the truth. Love, loves truth :).
Dictonary.com
Truth: the true or actual state of a matter
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1. |
the quality of being true, genuine, actual, or factual |
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2. |
something that is true as opposed to false |
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3. |
a proven or verified principle or statement; fact |
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4. |
a system of concepts purporting to represent |
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5. |
fidelity to a required standard or law |
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6. |
faithful reproduction or portrayal |
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7. |
an obvious fact; truism; platitude |
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8. |
honesty, reliability, or veracity |
|
9. |
accuracy, as in the setting, adjustment, or position of something |
|
the state or quality of being faithful; allegiance |
Truth = Jesus.
It is really
quite simple…Jesus is truth.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
Jesus/God/Holy
Spirit, they/He all speak the truth. They show us the truth; they only speak
truth because they are Truth. God created life and existence and therefore is
Truth. Mind blowing right? He will continue to speak truth because that is all He
can speak; whether it offends you or not.
He speaks no lies
That’s
something that has been very interesting as I continue to get closer to the
Lord and understand more of His character. The more I read the bible, the more frequently
I find hard, yet amazing truths. Sometimes these truths bring crazy amounts of
joy, and sometimes these truths are hard and knock you back in your seat.
I have been
contemplating what personal story to use for this blog. Someone pointed out to
me the importance of relating it to your own life experience; by golly did God
give me an example to use.
Just this
past week I had to face some hard truths; one being that I misspoke and
offended one of my friends. On the World Race it is very much our culture to
bring to others attention when we see a circumstance or something happening
that we feel really should be brought to their attention. Usually it’s a sin
issue, something that doesn’t seem in line with what the bible says or
something that they may just not be representing Christ in the best light.
However, when you go to speak these truths, we were trained on the extreme
importance of never qualifying something as a characteristic of the person, or
claim it as their identity. For instance, if someone is in a bad mood which is
causing them to be snappy, you point out the circumstance and the occasion, but
not identify them as a snappy person, because that is not the person God
created them to be and that is not their identity. Welp…even with my World
Race experience of practicing this for 11 months, apparently I am still very
far from perfect at it. I had to apologize to a dear friend of mine for placing
an identity on them that was not theirs. Praise God for their amazing grace
:). This friend also helped me realize
that some of this stems from an unhealthy mindset that I have right now from
some reason circumstances. Although it was hard to realize that I hurt my
friend, and as hard it was to admit that I have an unhealthy mindset about a
particular topic, I REJOICE that they were able to call that out in me. I am so
thankful that even though it was an incredibly humbling experience that they
loved me enough to be honest when I asked if I had offended and been so quick
to extend grace. Even if they hadn’t extended grace, I am so thankful that TRUTH was spoken. With truth can come
healing and restoration instead of sitting in lies. As much as it didn’t feel
good, I am thankful that God gave me this opportunity to shed some light on
this particular topic that I didn’t realize I was struggling with, and that I
could put this blog into my own experience. I never want to talk on something
that I cannot truly identify with; so God is faithful to hand me this hard
experience to understand His character that much better.
So many
people think they know ‘the truth’ and believe that their truth is reality. But
think about this for a second…there can only be one Absolute Truth. You can’t
have two opposing ideas be truth. I’ve spoken to a number of non-believers
lately about this: them saying they believe everyone’s truth is their truth. It
confuses me, because these people are crazy intelligent, and I still believe
they are even after our conversation. To believe that two opposing ideas can be
truth takes MORE belief than my belief that Jesus is the
Way…seriously…because they believe in contradiction…I don’t. Even to
believe that there is no God takes greater faith…to believe that this complex
world with its trees, mountains, birds, sunsets, beauty…to believe that
consciousness and morality just happened (science has no explanation for these
things), takes more faith!
All that to
say, the important thing to remember is what the Scriptures say about truth:
Love rejoices in truth.
Speaking the truth in love – Ephesians 4:15
Challenge of
the week: Be open to hearing hard truths. If someone is speaking something that
makes you feel uncomfortable, be open to it, digest it, filter it through God
and the Holy Spirit, and do with it what you feel prompted to do, but don’t
just get upset and brush it off. Also, be bold to speak truth with love to
others. Lastly, seek the truth in every conversation this week. Be careful to
only speak truth and if you aren’t sure your thought or idea is truth, take it
to the Scriptures first.
Love you all
and pray God speaks some awesome truths to you this week!
