We live in a culture where TRUTH is considered relative, constantly changing according to circumstances and man’s understanding. What is thought true for one person at one time isn’t necessarily true for another person or at a different time. According to this philosophy of relativism, absolute truth is non-existent, man is considered the measure of truth, and the existence of God is often rejected. As Harvard Professor Ruth Hubbard put it, “Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”
As Christians, we believe that truth is not really truth unless it meets God’s definition of truth! John 17:17 makes it clear that God’s Word is the source of truth. “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Psalm 119:160 says “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” Truth isn’t relative, it is unchanging and always lines up with God’s Word.
Today’s name of God is the God of Truth. There are actually three words in Hebrew that are translated truth.
• “Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O Lord, Godof truth (El ĕmeṯ).” (Psalm 31:5 NASB)
• “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth (El ĕmûnâ) and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.” Deuteronomy 32:4 NKJV
• “So that he who blesses himself in the earth Shall bless himself in the God of truth (El āmēn); And he who swears in the earth Shall swear by the God of truth; Because the former troubles are forgotten, And because they are hidden from My eyes.” Isaiah 65:16 NKJV
The first two Hebrew words, ĕmeṯ and ĕmûnâ convey the idea of both truth and faithfulness. The third one, āmēn, means verily, truly, amen, so be it. This is where we get the English word amen from.
The name God of truth applies to all three persons of the Godhead. Psalm 31:5 refers to Jehovah, Father God. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV) And Jesus spoke several times of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth(John 14:17 is one example). Finally, Jesus said to those who follow Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32 ESV)
Knowing the truth begins with knowing the God of truth personally, through a relationship with Christ Jesus. Then we increase in our knowledge of truth as we spend time daily in His written Word, which is our guide for truth.
“You already know these things, dear friends. So be on guard; then you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen.” 2 Peter 3:17-18 NLT
If you’ve watched the news on television recently, or read a newspaper or even posts online, the reports have been full of warnings concerning the Corona Virus. It’s wise to be on guard and take seriously what we hear from dependable sources on how we can protect ourselves. But to do that we first have to sift out the lies from the truth.
Today’s Scripture begins with another kind of warning, one that is the theme of the book of 2 Peter. This letter was written just before Nero began his persecution of Christians. Peter recognized his time on earth was coming to an end (2 Peter 1: 13-15) – shortly after this, he was martyred for his faith – and this final epistle was written to both warn and comfort the church in a time when their future looked unsettled. It was a time when the church also needed to recognize the lies and stand on the truth.
After encouraging the believers to remember that God’s power had given them everything they needed to live a godly life (2 Peter 1:3), even in the midst of the problems they were facing, the beloved apostle closed the book with the above two verses. To these who had been entrusted to his care, Peter was saying it’s time to be on guard, to both the dangers from without and complacency and heresy from within.
After warning the believers to maintain their secure footing in the midst of the false teaching that had infiltrated the church, he says the words that I’m focusing on today. “Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” In essence, he was reminding them to become aware that the main business they were there for was growing in God’s grace and in their knowledge of Jesus.
GROWING IN GRACE
Dwight L. Moody said concerning grace, “Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal…Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift of God to man the moment he sees he is unworthy of God’s favor. It’s a way to live. The law tells me how crooked I am. Grace comes along and straightens me out.”
One definition I’ve read is that grace is the power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. By grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross we are saved. Saving grace is explained in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
But grace isn’t only for salvation. We need God’s grace every day we live on this earth. God gives not only saving grace but also sustaining grace, the type of grace seen in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Max Lucado said concerning sustaining grace, “Sustaining grace meets us at our point of need and equips us with courage, wisdom, and strength.”
David Wilkerson said, “To me, grace is Holy Ghost empowerment to become more like Jesus. Therefore, to grow in grace means to increase in Christ-likeness through the unmerited power of God’s Spirit.”
As we grow in grace, we talk and think less about ourselves. We become lower and lower in our own estimation. We also come to a greater understanding of God’s holiness, justice, and sovereignty, which in turn allows us to more clearly see our rebellion, selfishness and pride. We recognize our unworthiness and see the greatness of His undeserved favor and love that drew us to Himself. And as David Wilkerson said, we become more like Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit that indwells our spirit.
GROWING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
Knowing Christ is of incomparable worth–of more value than anything! The apostle Paul wrote about this in his letter to the Philippian church.
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:7-11 ESV
Sometimes it takes a dramatic turn of events to alter our perspective. For me, that started with an accident that took the life of our firstborn daughter, Teresa, and left me crippled so badly my doctors did not expect me ever to be able to walk. Because of God’s grace, they were wrong. At the time, I was already a Christian who loved the Lord and wanted to please Him. My husband and I had met each other while attending Bible College, and we were now working with a ministry group in a small town in west Texas. Everything looked promising for the future.
What had I counted as gain? My health for one thing, my ability to walk whenever I wanted to, to get in the car and drive wherever I wanted to go, a relatively pain-free life, the desire to one day return to teaching kindergarten when our daughter was a little older. In one dramatic turn of events, all of those were lost.
How could I count these good desires as rubbish? How was all of this “for the sake of Christ.” Honestly, it took me a long time to come to the point where I could look at the losses and see any gain from them.
In his book The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence wrote,
“The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them – through faith or unbelief – that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good.
“Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.”
It took many years before I could look at these difficulties and others that came years later and see them through the lens of faith. I still don’t know why God allowed the accident that took the life of our firstborn. I still don’t understand God’s purposes in making my husband and I parents of a little boy who lived with profound mental retardation and was completely dependent upon others to meet all of his needs for all 34 years of his life. I don’t know why in the midst of this, we also became the caregivers of my dear mother-in-law who had Alzheimer’s. In fact, I stopped asking “why?” many years ago.
But there are some things I do know. I know God is good. I know He is faithful. I know from experience that His grace is sufficient, even in my weakness. And above all, I know that the circumstances I’ve lived through have changed me into a different person than I was when all of this began in December 1975. My love for God is deeper, and my peace surpasses my understanding. And finally, I know a time is coming when the Lord will wipe away every tear from my eyes, when death and mourning and pain will be no more, when God will make all things new (Revelation 21:4-5).
Until then, my desire is to continue growing in the grace and knowledge of my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. And to continue trusting my unknown future to a God I’ve come to know.
Waiting isn’t optional, but waiting well is! I hope you learned some keys on how to wait well from Tuesday’s post. We learned that to wait well is to wait prayerfully, patiently, joyfully and expectantly. It is to wait with trust, believing what God says in His Word about His nature and His ways. It is to wait with strength and courage. It is to wait with worship. But I purposely left out one truth about waiting well. To wait well is to wait with thankfulness.
Psalm 13 is a short passage of Scripture, only six verses long, so take the time to read it. As you do, notice the question David repeatedly asks.
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
In these six brief verses, we see the words “how long” four times. Have you ever cried out to God with those same words during a time of waiting that seemed to drag on and on and on? I sure have. We don’t know the exact circumstances that David was facing when he wrote these words. But we do know he was sorrowful, even despairing of life. His enemies were prevailing and he was feeling shaken.
During extended times of waiting, we may feel forgotten or even forsaken. But instead of allowing our feelings to determine our attitude and actions, we can choose to remember what we know about God. We can choose to believe the truths He reveals in His Word. I believe that’s what David did, and it provides a clear pattern for us to follow.
Instead of fixing his eyes on his circumstances, instead of acting on his emotions, David turned his eyes on the Lord. He acknowledges his adversaries, but he also gives thanks to his God.
“And my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted and relied on and been confident in Your lovingkindness and faithfulness; My heart shall rejoice and delight in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.” PSALM 13:4-6 AMP
Are you currently in a prolonged time of waiting? If so, are you willing to stop using your feelings as a guide? Are you willing to turn your focus off of your circumstances and onto the God who is bigger than your circumstances? Are you willing to look for what you can thank God for in the midst of your situation that still shows no signs of resolution?
On this Thankful Thursday, let’s learn from the psalmist David and reflect on the nature of our God. Where do you see His goodness? His faithfulness? His lovingkindness? Look at your situation and see where there is evidence that God is at work, even during this time of waiting. Then, let’s offer up to Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving for who He is and what He is doing.
“I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.” Psalm 116:17
“The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” Psalm 50:23
I received a free excerpt from Kelly Minter’s newest Lifeway Bible Study, Finding God Faithful, in my email on Tuesday, opening and reading it soon after I returned home from an appointment with a new orthopedic surgeon that morning. It looks like a great study on the life of Joseph, one I’d love to do sometime soon, but that’s not why I’m sharing it here. I wanted to share the following quote that began the enclosed excerpt from the study – which as soon as I read it “jumped off the page” as if if were on a neon sign.
“We can get through just about any pain or suffering if we know the Lord is in it with us. But when we feel forsaken or abandoned, our pain becomes unbearable. In a most trying circumstance, the psalmist expressed what the Lord’s presence meant to him with the imagery, ‘Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me’ (Ps. 23:4, emphasis mine).”
This last nine weeks have been very difficult physically for me. But they have also been some of the most encouraging in recent years as God’s presence has been amazingly near. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:16, this situation I have been walking through since the last week of May has been a reminder not to lose heart, for even though my outer self – my physical body – is wasting away, my inner self – my soul and spirit – is being renewed day by day. And why is that? God’s presence in these trying circumstances has been the one constant.
At least a couple times a week, I’ve heard a clear message from the Lord concerning how I was to walk through this difficult season. As I read the above quote early this afternoon, my eyes were opened to the fact that each message I’ve heard from the Lord had one central theme: His presence is what you and I need to make it through this and every season of suffering.
Never once has He given me a word that had to do with my symptoms or what I was to do about them. When I left for today’s appointment, none of my questions about what treatment was best in this situation had been answered. Each time, God’s message centered on His presence being the answer I was needing to make it through this difficult season victoriously. Each time I prayed and sensed a word from the Lord, it focused on Him.
There was the word that He was taking me on a detour from my planned route to my destination, but the message I heard emphasized His control over the detour and His purpose in it. Then the Lord reminded me through Deuteronomy 31:8 that He would go before me and be with me, He would not leave me or forsake me. I was not to give place to fear or discouragement. Instead, I was to fix my eyes on the Lord and not on my circumstances.
I was reminded of His perfect love that casts out fear (1 John 4:18). I was encouraged by the truth that His steadfast love and faithfulness go before me (Psalms 94:14). God brought to my mind the truth that I needed be still before the Lord so I could hear His still, small voice (1 Kings 19:12). And as I read the familiar verses at the end of Matthew 2811, three simple words stood out to me, “Come to me.” (Matthew 11:28).
On this Thankful Thursday, let’s give thanks to God for His sustaining and strengthening presence that enables us to make it through the tough seasons in our lives. No matter what we are currently facing, the Lord’s presence is what we’re needing above all else.
Many years ago, our daughter Amy had the opportunity to go on a cruise to the Yucatan Peninsula. What promised to be an exciting vacation turned out much differently than expected when the cruise ship was threatened by a hurricane, lost power to one of it’s engines, and had to skip most of the scheduled ports of call to make it to home port ahead of the hurricane.
As the hurricane resulted in a disappointing vacation for our daughter, the storms of life can bring disappointments and hardships into our lives. When that happens, we need an anchor to hold our souls steady until the winds and rain are behind us. God’s Word teaches us that hope is the anchor God has provided to keep us secure during the storms of life.
I recently completed a Bible study at our church on the unshakable hope God provides to hold us steady during the spiritual storms that touch our lives. This isn’t the world’s kind of hope, which is little more than wishful thinking. Biblical hope has as its foundation faith in God. It is the belief that with God anything is possible. Tony Evans has defined this kind of hope as “confident expectation that God is going to do what He says He will do.” Biblical hope doesn’t deny the difficult circumstances we are walking through, but it views them through the lens of God’s character and His Word.
Hebrews 6:18 encourages us to seize or take hold of the hope God has set before us, to grab it and not let it go. Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”
Without an anchor to keep us steady, when the storms of life hit, our souls – our minds, will, and emotions – will be tossed to and fro. Hope in God and in His promises is the anchor that keeps us steady regardless of what circumstances we might be facing.
Our family been through several intense storms in the past couple years. And in these difficulties our family has walked through, I’ve learned a little about holding onto hope as an anchor to steady my soul. Two things in particular have stood out to me.
First, I’ve learned that the character of our God is a sure foundation I can sink my anchor into. In our recent study, we focused on four characteristics of God which enable us to know He will do what He has promised.
God is unchanging. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17
God is faithful. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23
God is strong. He has the power to do what He has promised. “No unbelief made him (Abraham) waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” Romans 4:20-21
God cannot lie. “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” Hebrews 6:17-18
I’ve also learned that for any situation God asks us to walk through, there is a promise in God’s Word we can stand on.
Are you feeling overwhelmed with physical or emotional weakness? Hebrews 4:15 tells us Jesus understands what you’re going through. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16
Are you feeling everyone is condemning you, that no one even cares enough to pray for you? That’s not true. “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Romans 8:34
Maybe you are in a trial that has lasted so long you’ve given up hope of anything ever being different. Grab hold of the promise in Psalm 30:5 and don’t let it go. “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
No matter what storm you are facing, God has an answer in His Word. Ask Him to lead you to the truth you need to hold onto about His character. Ask for a promise in His Word you can lean on. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. Your hope in the character and promises of God is the sure anchor that will steady your soul until you are through the storm.
Tomorrow will be the five-month anniversary of the day the Lord took our son David to his heavenly home. When David was born, my husband and I entered an unknown world of being the parents of a child with extensive medical needs that our lives centered around meeting his needs.
During David’s short lifetime, we’ve faced a long list of diagnoses with diseases we had never even heard of before, fragile bones which resulted is numerous fractures, evaluations by doctors that put David’s life-expectancy at twelve years or less, dozens of hospitalizations which could have ended in death, and even a legal battle to not lose all his essential nursing care when he turned twenty-one. In the midst of all of this, the Lord graciously gave us thirty-four years with David.
On this Thankful Thursday, I’m grateful for the work God has done in my husband’s and my life over the last thirty-four plus years to bring us to the place where the attributes of God’s character have moved from being words in a book to being truths we now know by personal experience. Trials are rich soil in which our knowledge of God has the opportunity to grow.
I now know our God is a loving and compassionate Father, because I’ve seen His love and compassion in innumerable situations in our lives.
I now know God is faithful to keep His promises, because in one circumstance after another God has given us promises and then done exactly what He promised.
I now know God has the power to do what looks impossible in my eyes, because I’ve seen Him turn around several situations that looked impossible.
The one situation that stands out to me above all others was what God did when David aged out of the children’s services program that provided him with sixteen hours a day of private duty nursing care. When David’s twenty-first birthday was approaching, the state offered us only two options. We could choose to keep David at home and meet his extensive medical needs without any nursing care, or we could institutionalize him in a state school. We went to visit the nearest state school for the disabled, and they told us they really hoped we would not enroll him there, because they were not able to meet his extensive medical needs. We’ve never faced a situation that looked more impossible!
God gave us a promise: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26 ESV) As I was praying, the Lord brought to mind the name of a legal assistance program, Advocacy, Inc. (now known as Disability Rights Texas). I made a call to the local legal office, but this was such a major case that we ended up being represented at the Federal District Court by the top legal team for disability rights in the state of Texas, at no cost to us.
Through a legal settlement, God made a way for us to continue to meet David’s needs in our home, with no reduction in the level of services he received as a child, until the day the Lord took him home. And He provided the added benefit of setting a legal precedent through our case that has helped numerous other families who have faced the same situation when their son or daughter turned twenty-one.
Now that our son is safely in God’s presence, no longer suffering but whole for the first time, our family is walking in a season of transition. The past is behind us, the future uncertain. In this situation, a quote I heard many years ago has come to mind. While I don’t have a clear picture of what lies ahead, I do know the One who does. As Corrie ten Boom said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
Today, I want to encourage you to look at your current circumstances through the lens of God’s attributes. How has He shown Himself to you through the struggles you’ve walked through? What characteristics of God have moved from simply being something you’ve read about in the Word of God to something you now know by personal experience? Let’s encourage one another today by sharing how your battles with chronic illnesses and whatever other difficulties have been a part of your life have helped you grow in your knowledge of God.
HOPE & LIGHT 