A God Who Is Truthful
"Show me Your ways, O Lord,
Teach me Your paths;
Guide me in Your truth and teach me
For You are God my Saviour."
Psalm 25: 4
N. I.V.
EXPLORATION
"A God Who Is Truthful"
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"Where I found truth, there found I my God, who is the truth itself."
St. Augustine
Do I believe what God says is the "Truth"?
"Truth is the daughter of God."
Thomas Fuller
INSPIRATION
"If we hold on to God's truth, we won't be trapped by Satan's lies."
Author Unknown
Several weeks ago, someone called to give me a piece of "information" they deemed vital. As they passed on this juicy tidbit they qualified their remarks by saying, "What I'm telling you is REALLY the truth." I underscore the word "really" because they placed such emphasis on the word.
Just a few days later, I received another call, from a very reliable source who completely contradicted the information I had received days before.
Now I faced a dilemma! Two people, both claiming to be telling me the truth, related stories which were miles apart. I asked myself, "Who am I to believe?" I knew the truth was hidden somewhere, but I wasn't certain of its exact location.
Has the same thing ever happened to you? I'm certain it has for without a doubt we have all faced a junction in our lives when two divergent versions of the truth have come together to confuse and deceive us.
And lest you think this phenomenon has reared its ugly head in the 21st century, I'd like to take you back to a garden paradise where we met God's first daughter, Eve. She was the first woman we studied this year. Living in a perfect garden home, you might think conflicting stories would be impossible to concoct, but you'd be wrong. In Genesis 2: 16, 17, God gave this instruction: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Yet some time later, we find Eve standing at the tree of knowledge of good and evil beguiled by a dazzling, talking serpent who informed her in no uncertain terms, "Ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3: 1-4, K.J.V.).
There you have it. Two very different views on the truth. And I ask you again, "Who does a girl believe?" Unfortunately, you and I know all too well the sad events which took place when Eve chose to follow the wrong version of what was claimed to be "the truth."
After being banished from their perfect home, ashamed and heartbroken, it didn't take long for Adam and Eve to discern what the real truth was. When they watched their sons, Cain and Abel, choose two different versions of truth, "my truth" and "God's truth," they cried out in horror as they saw the result that sin does cause death as Cain put his own personal version of the truth before God's and in hate murdered his brother, whom God honored for obedience.
Time moves forward. The children of Israel are held under the bondage of a "new serpent," the Pharaoh of Egypt. And God laid out truth to Pharaoh, but instead Pharaoh chose to follow his own version of truth. And again, death was the result.
Now we come to the book of Leviticus, and God has a long list of seemingly detailed instructions about sacrifices, cleanliness, medical treatment, marriage, eating, dress. It would be easy to say, "What is the reason for all this? I'll put my reason over God's. I can figure out what the truth is on my own." As we will see in the next few days, this is exactly what some of the children of Israel did. They put their "truth" over God's and the result was death.
Sacrificial offerings may, to some, seem like a very cruel and demanding way for a God of love to run His universe. At the time, when God's children had put so little value on human life, the idea that sin causes death, and that God was telling the truth when He warned His children about the toxic effects of repeated acts of disobedience, it was a truth they had difficulty comprehending. But each time an innocent lamb was killed, the truth of what God said-- that death is the result of disobedience-- became a painful reality, and they began to recognize – God had told the truth.
All through Scripture, we find God telling us, over and over, to listen to His instruction for it is the "truth." And yet, like the children of Israel, we disobey or as the Hebrew defines "disobey" – we don't listen.
Miguel de Cervantes said, "Where truth is, there is God." The second characteristic of God we find displayed in the book of Leviticus is that our God tells the truth. As the children of Israel came to the tabernacle with their offerings and witnessed the painful death of innocent lambs, they were daily reminded of what God said to our first parents--sin causes death.
"The things in the Bible aren't true because they're in the Bible-they're in the Bible because they're true."
Author Unknown
AFFIRMATION
"Lord Jesus Christ, you said that you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life; let us never stray from You, who are the Way; nor distrust You, who are the Truth; nor rest in any other but You, who are the Life, beyond whom there is nothing to be desired, either in heaven or on earth. We ask it for Your name's sake"
Eramus
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Dorothy Valcárcel, Author
When A Woman Meets Jesus
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