The Honest Christian - Introduction

(Beginning a 7 part series over here on the blog on the foundational concept in Christianity of honesty.)

God holds the corner market on Truth (Jn 14:6)

Why does He get to be the One to define truth? Because He made…well, everything…EVERYTHING…even you and me. (Rom 11:33-36).

He created the world and then He revealed much of His design to us in His Word. The Book that we have laying around our houses often collecting dust is divinely inspired and includes every foundational truth that is available to us on this earth (2 Tim 3:16).

I wanted to preface everything I’ve written about truth with that, because at the most honest we will ever be, as finite humans, we will still be lacking in truth. And even when we’ve obtained all the truth on this earth that we are able to, we will still be missing things or overlooking things or misunderstanding things. As I heard a pastor say in a sermon once, “Only God has the full truth on everything…even us.”

We tend to be revisionists…revising truth to fit our own desires…and reductionists…leaving the stuff we don’t like out. We also often tend to either oversimplify or overcomplicate the truth.

Think about it. I don’t know about you, but when my family is sitting around the table at home, we will inevitably end up in a conversation about something that happened or is currently happening in our lives. In these conversations, as each of us give our perspective, often an argument will break out because versions of the same story conflict.

Is that because any of us are dishonest? No. It’s because we could only view any given situation from one perspective. We are finite, so our view of the truth will be finite.

This is why it’s so important to always remember that God is the only One who has full knowledge of the truth. He is constantly leading us towards that full knowledge, but while we are finite beings on a broken earth, we won’t ever reach perfection of truth. We must rely on God continually and trust Him with all the things we don’t yet know.

Understanding that God is the only One big enough to hold truth helps us to walk in humility, because sometimes, we can be right and still be wrong. And every single one of us is wrong about something or the other. We aren’t the standard of truth. God is.

We see a fight over the standard of truth often within the sects of Christianity. There is much dispute about truth from denomination to denomination and even from church to church. Sometimes these disputes become Christian civil wars as we battle over who owns certain truth ground.

How many problems could be solved in the Church if we admitted to ourselves that we are dissecting God’s Word as best we know how, but it’s completely possible that we are wrong about some things?

I think it’s why God continually brings everything in the Word back to knowing and believing on Jesus. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We don’t have to know it all because we know the One who does. Jesus is Truth. The closer we get to Him, the more honest we will be.

And honesty is certainly a foundational concept for a believer’s life. It’s also a concept that is often underrated. It is only and always truth that leads us to more freedom. There is no short cut. There is no alternate path. If we want to be free, we have to go by way of Truth.