The Truth Of The Matter - The Excellence Centre

Time to talk about Truth.

Our Biblical Christian understanding is that God is Truth. That Truth is expressed in His Word, the Bible, and incarnationally in Jesus. But, we cannot get to know Truth unaided.

One of the most profound and true phone messages I have received was an SMS from a student: “Today, God found me.” In that message is the amazing understanding that no matter how much we try, we cannot be reunited in a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ, by our own effort. We have to acknowledge that “True Truth” is revealed by God Himself. This is what makes the reading of the Scriptures so fundamental to our lives; they contain the revealed Truths of God. But before we can understand those revealed truths in the Bible, we have to acknowledge, believe in and believe on, the existence of God and the great redemption enabled through Jesus Christ. This can only be by revelation of the Spirit of God. When we are lost, we don’t even know we’re lost until Jesus comes to find us. We cannot find this Truth unaided.

Tom Wright in “Simply Christian”, writes:

“Imagine being in a lonely house, out in the country away from street lights. Late one wintry evening, the power goes off, leaving everything blacked out for miles around. You remember where you left a box of matches; groping carefully around the room, you find them. Striking one match after another, you find your way to where you stored the candles. The candle keeps you going while you hunt around for a torch. All that makes sense. Matches, candles and torches are things we can use to help us see in the dark. What makes no sense, when at last it’s nearly morning, is to go out with either matches, candles or torch to see if the sun has risen yet.” The pathetic light that we might create is infinitesimal compared with the dazzling brightness of the Sun that comes as an initiative of God, completely unaided by us. We cannot claim that our feeble efforts to shine light into the darkness led to our discovery of the great light of God’s Truth . . .”

Our seeking for knowledge, our probing and questioning, may perhaps lead us in the direction where God might be found, but they cannot break through and claim to have grasped God all by themselves. When we see the enormity of sunlight, all of our efforts to bring light to the world with our matches, candles and torches become so puny. Instead we glory in the light of the sun. We glory in the fact that once the sun is risen we can now see everything so clearly.

Next Term we’ll look at how knowing the virtue of Truth will help us to see some good values for community.

Blessings Brian