Truth Seeking

 

Has it occurred to you that some of the things you believe are simply not true?

It’s easy to listen to others and pick out where they’re wrong. (I’m not talking about opinions.)

Look at a moral topic where you’re hearing opposing views, one (or more) can clearly be wrong.

I’m writing today to ask you to CONSIDER that there are things you believe today that are not true.

We have an enemy, and yes – he lies to us. We believe those lies because we don’t recognize them. As a matter of fact, Jesus calls Satan the father of lies! (John 8:44 NIV)

I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but God is tugging at my heart to write about it again.

It might be something easily dismissed because we think we know better; pride might tell us we would never fall for a lie.

But we all do!

Satan is very convincing. It’s his self-appointed job to tear us down, to plant seeds of doubt in our mind, and to convince us that God is not good. He revels in telling us that we aren’t lovable and watches our eyes fall when we believe it’s true. Then he piles on more self-debasing thoughts.

He’s subtle and sneaks in “little lies” that don’t seem to matter. But they begin to pile up in our mind and before you know it, we’re believing some seriously big lies.

The Bible tells us, “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; [but Jesus says] I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” – John 10:10 NIV

We’re warned!

But most of us don’t understand just how sneaky and treacherous he is. He hates you simply because God loves you. And that’s the biggest truth he tries to hide from you - that God truly DOES love you. Satan cannot stand it that God loves you and he fights to keep you from believing it.

He doesn’t want us to believe that God is good. We can come up with too many evil things in the world – and Satan wants us to attribute them to God, not him.

God. Is. Good.

How can we recognize these lies?

The ONLY way is to talk with our heavenly Father and ask Him to show us the lies we’re believing.

He wants to show us. He won’t show you everything at once, that would overwhelm us.

He’ll reveal them to us as He walks us through them, showing us in His Word, HIS truth, the absolute truth. Jesus said, “I AM the Truth.” (John 14:6 NIV)

Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to this world (don’t believe the lies of this world), but to renew our minds. Our minds NEED renewing!

When we become His child, we turn from the lies of this world and wash our minds with the Word of God.

NOTE: We won’t recognize lies if we don’t know the truth.

The Excellence of the Guard; My Conclusion

(picture from pinterest .com)

Our hearts hold untold treasures. Go ahead, try to list them. That's sure to renew your joy!

We’ve also stored plenty of memories in there; we’ve buried feelings and emotions there.

How can we guard it with excellency?

God said to “Guard your heart above all else,” Why? “for it determines the course of your life.” – Proverbs 4:23 NLT

He doesn’t tell us to do anything we’re not able to do – with Him.

I believe our hearts are that hidden place where our spirit and soul come together; the place where God lives, if we let Him. Just as we have a triune God, we are triune beings. We ARE spirit, the part of us that is redeemed from the sin of the world; the part that joins into union with God Himself. We HAVE a soul (our mind, our will and our emotions) and we LIVE IN our body till we leave this world. When we come to Christ and invite Him to live in our heart, it involves submitting ourselves to Him completely. Many of us want God to save us from hell’s destruction after we leave this world but have absolutely no desire to become one with Him and submit the smallness of our humanity to the only all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent God.

Whether we know Jesus or not, we can guard our minds. We can be disciplined and hyper-vigilant about what we take in, at least for a while. We can stive to watch wholesome entertainment, we can study certain topics while deliberately avoiding others. We can limit who and what we surround ourselves with.  But plenty of garbage gets past us. We’d have to live alone on a deserted island to not get input from others. That’s not where we live.

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Whether we know Jesus or not, we can guard our bodies, though few of us have the discipline or perhaps resources to do so. Some are very determined to have healthy bodies. We do the best we can with what we have. But we all have unwelcome input that makes its way into our bodies, via our food or the air we breathe or the water we drink. To not get that input, we’d again have to live on that island and now it would have to be an island that could provide for healthy body requirements.

Only when we DO know Jesus are we supernaturally empowered to adequately guard our heart. That power comes from being united with the source of ALL power. By guarding our hearts, we become better equipped to guard our soul and our body.

The ONLY way to guard our heart is to follow biblical instruction, given to us in Romans 12:1-2 (NIV). “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

This means submitting ourselves to God, renewing our minds (spending time with God and His Word) and putting our hearts in His hands. Does doing this mean we will never suffer attacks? No, we’re promised attacks. But the more quality time we spend in His Word, the more easily we’ll recognize the assaults the god of this world and come against them. With God, we are the most excellent of the Guard.

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With God living on the inside of us and being joined together with us in the most intimate way possible, we can tap into His power. When we do OUR best, we weary ourselves. There’s so much to pay attention to around us. All our energy is consumed by constantly being on guard. We lose our creative energy and abilities to glorify God. By joining WITH GOD, we become capable of guarding our hearts, (where our being comes together), and doing it well. We are too weak to do it without Him and the struggle will make us weaker. The excellence of the Guard comes only through relationship with the God Who created our heart in the first place.

Chains

(photo from armstrongeconomics.com)

Most likely, your chains are not on your hands and feet, but on your mind. It’ll take more than just wishing to get free.

Surely, you’ve had bad dreams. The only way to get free is to wake up! When it seems like life is caving in on us, we need to awaken to what God has to say about it.

In Romans 12:2 God’s Word tells us to renew our mind. In short, this means to replace the thoughts in our mind that bring us down or lead us the wrong direction, with God’s thoughts on the matter; what we find in scripture. For example, if we bash ourselves with thoughts like, “I can’t do anything right” God wants us to know that we “can do all things through Him (Christ) Who strengthens us.” (Philippians 4:13)

In Philippians 4:8 God’s Word tells us to think on the good things. This is what enables us to renew our minds. What we think produces what we become. If I constantly criticize myself for being “so fat” I’ll just get fatter. That’s the direction my mind is going to take my body with those kinds of thoughts. Whereas, if I believe that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14) I can begin to realize that I was purposefully made with love; I’m worth taking care of. Once I believe God on this, I’ll care enough to take care of myself. As I read that I am the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19), I discover why I need to take care of my body. I’m housing the very Spirit of God in my heart! If too much weight is making me unhealthy, I can begin to take measures to lose it, by caring for this “temple”.

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In the book of Psalms, we learn that God wants us to listen to His voice. In Psalm 34:11 we read, “Come, you children, and listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Again, in Psalm 81:8, God Himself implores us, “Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you. O Israel, if you will listen to Me!”

God gave revelation to man to write His Word for our instruction and encouragement. To not hear what He has to say to us is like buying a very expensive electronic gadget and tossing aside the instructions, then play around with it trying to figure it out. I don’t know how tech savvy you are, but I’d ruin my expensive gadget quickly. Some of us might figure out the basics of how to get it to work, but if we didn’t ruin it in the process, we’d certainly never be able to take advantage of everything it can do without those instructions. I cringe at the thought of wasting my money like that. I also cringe at the thought of how much God’s put inside of us that we never use, or for that matter, that we never even know about.

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In James 2:18-26 God’s Word tells us that we need to put action to our faith, that faith without works is dead. (Works without faith may look good, but they count for little.)

That’s not to say that we can earn anything in the kingdom of God, only that once our faith comes alive, we’ll want to share it. That will include working to bless others. We can’t pour from an empty ladle, so we first need to find the gifts that God has already placed there.

If we piece together each of these points, we have a pretty good blueprint for freedom. Freedom from sin and the thoughts that bring us down. Freedom to live life abundantly, and to share it generously with those around us.

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Freedom comes when we renew our mind. Delve into that, today!

Think good thoughts that are uplifting and productive; not evil and lazy and unproductive.

Listen to God’s voice, hear His instructions. Whether He speaks to you through His Word, or the still small voice that draws you closer to His heart, listen.

Act like the child of God you’re called to be. Put your love and your faith into actions, sharing God’s love with everyone you meet.

Blindness - A Heart Condition

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  John 1:14 NKJV

 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; remarkable words. The living Word of God put on the same flesh we wear and walked among man – and man didn’t recognize him. The preceding verses tell us: He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 

 

So should we wrestle with whether or not people see Jesus in us? As it was so beautifully pointed out to us in church this morning, we are the flesh Jesus wears now. He is the Word that comes alive in us when we submit to Him. But apparently, no matter how Christ-like we become, there will still be people who refuse to acknowledge Him in their midst.

 

When asked to prove God’s existence, which has always baffled me, I have to admit that I don’t have the proof they need. Proof is only proof when it’s the proof we’re looking for. Jesus dealt with the same unbelief in the days when He walked the earth. Show us a sign, the crowds demanded of Him. There He was, God Himself, in the flesh, walking their streets, living among them; the signs and wonders He presented to them would have brought Sodom and Gomorrah to their knees in repentance, but the hardness of the hearts that beheld His skin-clothed face demanded even more evidence.

 

In scripture, Jesus asks His disciples who they believe Him to be. The only right answer was revealed through God the Father, not through man.

He [Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 16:15-17 NKJV

 

Renew your mind through God’s Word (Romans 12:2) – and leave the rest to Him.

My Way?

Beginning again but we’ll try
something new
We should have started this way before.
In our hearts we know more than our minds can imagine
That’s why we attempt this once more.

In our hearts is a voice that says,
“Listen to Me.”
But our mind says, “I know what I’ll do!”
We start out again to arrange
things our way
In the end it’ll look misconstrued.

Everyone who will turn and will give
us the time
Can easily see what we’ve done
Perhaps not out loud,
but they’ll laugh when they see
For we’re right where we’d thought
we’d begun.

“Try again,” we’ll feel prompted and sigh
and sit down
And we’ll try it a new way today.
Once again in our hearts that ol’ tugging
we’ll feel
As God prompts us to do things His Way.

But our head tells us differently,
“Try it like this!”
And our heart tries so hard to chime in.
But it knows deep inside that this way
will not work
And we’re doomed to repeat it again.

So the struggle is getting our mind to obey
What we know in our hearts we should do.
For our mind says to do things the way
of our past
And our heart says,
“Let’s try out the new!”

In the past we were sinners so
lost in our way
But then Jesus came into our heart.
But we’re trapped in the ways that our minds used to think
Forgetting we get a new start.

So first we must stop and just listen to God
And determine what He has to say,
If we take time to pray about all that we do
We will hear when He tells us His Way.

The instructions He gives us may not
sound quite right
But that’s where our faith must come in.
If instead we turn back and search out
our own way
That’s not only dumb, it is sin!

So to add to the problems of doing our task
Planning out the right path we should take,
We drag in a bag that we can’t even see,
The conscience convictions we make.

Now the planning gets harder and harder
each time
And the grip of our sin just gets tighter,
If our minds would just stop and try
listening to God
We would find that the burden gets lighter.

But our mind is accustomed to being
in charge
And our hearts have to fight tooth and nail.
For our heart knows a joy it is dying to share
But our minds dig up fears that we’ll fail.

So we struggle with words like,
“Renewing our mind,”
And it tears us apart at the soul.
But the secret is simple,
our hearts know it well
~Give up and give Jesus control!
~Helen Williams! c 2002