Tag: Truth

Saturday Strands

On By BrianIn Saturday Strands

Here are some loose strands for our growth:

How Should We Pray? A Helpful Framework of Seven ‘P’s – John Stevens
It helps to have some framework for prayer that shapes our thinking and speaking. I find it helpful to bear in mind the following aspects of prayer, both for my personal praying and public prayers.

Leave Church a Little Tired: Serving the Saints on Sunday Morning – Sam Emadi (DG)
The next time you gather with God’s people, I hope you leave strengthened and spiritually fed, I hope you’re built up by the gospel, and I also hope you leave a little tired. I hope you leave looking a little more like the Son of Man, who gave his life to serve.

The Radiance of Real Holiness – Trevin Wax
I’ve been thinking more carefully about how compelling and attractive holiness can be in a world that has forgotten the sacred dignity of humanity and the high calling God has for us.

Follow the Truth, Not Your Heart – Robby Lashua (STR)
The Christian worldview teaches that the heart is deceitfully wicked and that transformation happens when our minds are conformed to the truth. According to the New Age worldview, the mind is a trickster, so we should follow our hearts. This is a complete inversion of the truth.

Flashback: Where God Dwells
God is high and holy, so it should not surprise us that he dwells in a high and holy place. What should absolutely amaze us….

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping God with your local church!

Four Good Reasons We Should Speak The Truth

On By BrianIn Ten Commandments

TenCommandsThe ninth commandment forbids bearing false witness. The command alone should cause us to commit to speaking the truth. But God gives us at least four more good reasons to speak the truth:

1. God hates lying. Proverb 12:22 tells us that “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” God absolutely despises lying, and so we ought to speak the truth.

2. Habitual liars are lost. In Revelation 21:8, liars join murderers, sorcerers, and many other sinners in the lake of fire. A life characterized by lying denies a gospel transformation in one’s life. Liars need salvation.

3. Lying belongs to the old way of life. Colossians 3:9-10 reminds us that we have put off the old self with its sinful practices (including lying) and put on the new self. We have a new life in Christ, and we should act like it.

4. We follow the truth. Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). The Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (John 4:16-17). The Word is the Word of Truth (John 17:17). As we follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God’s Word, we follow the truth. And if we follow the truth, our words should agree with the truth.

Full of Grace and Truth

On By BrianIn Miscellaneous1 Comment

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14 (ESV)

Jesus was full of grace and truth, but we tend to lean in one direction or another.

We may lean toward a graceless truth: We look with disgust at sinners. We are quick to condemn someone who fails to live up to the truth – we become the judge, jury, and executioner. Somehow we lose sight of our own failure to live out the truth, our own need of grace.

Or we may lean toward a truthless grace. We treat sin as if it were no big deal. We are quick to excuse sin. It doesn’t matter what anyone does. We easily compromise truth in the name of freedom. Somehow we lose sight of God’s commands, and his expectation of obedience.

But Jesus was full of grace and truth. He confronts our graceless truth and our truthless grace. He graciously reaches out to sinners with forgiveness, even as he calls them to live out the truth.

The world doesn’t need our self-righteous condemnation nor our irrelevant affirmation.

The world needs grace and truth. The world needs Jesus. Just like us.