Truth Or Consequences

"What's true for you might not be what's true for me." Opinion is now masquerading as truth.

"I'm o.k., you're o.k." We have convinced ourselves that any behavior is tolerable and is simply the truth of how we live our lives.

"Diversity of thinking and acceptance of new ideas makes the world a better place." Traditional values and conservative thinking is closed-minded and judgmental.

Winds of deceit are blowing through our world and we are being philosophically tossed about with nothing to keep us anchored.

The progressive ideas of relativity, toleration and diversity have done incredible damage to the fiber and fabric of our world, but are constantly being heralded as truth. And still worse, many of us have bought into these counterfeit versions of the truth to one degree or another.

Whether it is anti-bullying programs in schools that criminalize kids who make judments about other's lifestyles, or classes that insult our founding fathers calling them them slave rapers and money grubbing elitists, these forms of progressive thinking are being peddled as objective truth.

In his letter to the church in Ephesus, the Apostle Paul calls for unity of love and thought. Ephesus was a 1st century boom town where christianity had grown rapidly. With many groups meeting in homes, halls and squares, the church in Ephesus was lively and vibrant. But there were other influences swaying people's attention away from God. There was a great temple in the city devoted to the pagan fertility goddess Artemis, also known as Diana. Centered around this pagan temple were a group known as the Nicolaitions who taught that any form of excess was a virtue and that in life, truth was in the eye of the beholder. To the Nicolaitians it was anything goes. Many Christians had fallen prey to this group and it was causing problems in the church. It is to the unity of love and thought that the Apostle Paul calls the church to return to.

In the Book of Revelation, the apostle John, one of Jesus' original twelve disciples, also makes this criticism of the Ephesian church and threatens God's wrath and judgment if they do not return to the core values of the faith.

Ephesus was not unlike America is today. The psychology of self-want and self-centeredness has slowly crept its way into Christian thinking. The idea that any truth is as good as another and that Christians can interpret Scripture any way they want is a regular occurence in many mainline Protestant churches. Views about sexuality, abortion and spousal and parental behavior have all become matters of personal choice.

The solution? A clear and objective reading of the Word of God. Truth must be the anchor of life or nothing good will happen in our lives. Everything we need to know about God, ourselves and our destiny can only be found in the Bible. The problem is that we have strayed away from the traditional interpretations of scripture or have just begun to ignore them. We have read into scripture the new cultural values of diversity, relativity and tolerance in ways that totally go against the traditional and original teachings of the apostles of the early church.

But is the Bible as flexible as we like to make it? No! The truth is that we need to get back to a plain reading of the Bible in light of its original context. We have been told that Scripture is hard to understand and is mainly allegorical or symbolic so it must be interpreted for us. But the Bible generally interprets itself . It says what it means and it means what it says. It is not philosophy that is open to question, but firmly presents the truth according to God. The Bible clearly teaches virtue, morality and truth and our feelings, opinions and sensitivities cannot change the truth of the message. It is what it is, whether it challenges our way of life or not. We can accept it or deny it. But we cannot change the truth in order to justify the way we want to live.

True unity can only be achieved when there is a truth to be united around. The world offers its own versions of reality which only serve to divide us and confuse us about what is right and what is wrong.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:14, "Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here or there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming." Paul wants us to know that current fads or loosend values can only serve to cut us away from our anchor.

Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 4:15, "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ."

In our world today diversity means that any way of living is just as good as another. Homosexuality, materialism, promiscuousness, dishonesty and lack of discipline and morality are just lifestyle choices we should not judge or question. The Bible says that this is wrong.

In our world today, toleration means that failure to accept any values and lifestyles is closed-minded, old fashioned, judgmental and bigoted. The Bible does not agree.

In our world today relativity means that every fact needs to be re-interpreted in light of one's feelings and opinions. The Bible teaches otherwise.

In order to live and express our faith, we need to be "bible-based." The scripture gives it all to us, but we have to read it to know what's in it. We need to study it, learn it and meditate on it everyday of our lives. Those who say that you can back up any opinion in scripture are usually the people who don't read the Bible.

If you want to stop the boat of life from being swamped by winds and waves of the world, you must throw out an anchor. There is no other way to know the truth and share it with others.

If you think this sounds judgmental...it is! The Truth is always judgmental, that is why so many spend their time and energy trying to avoid it. We think if we ignore it or pretend not to know it, we will be free of it. Not so!

We will be judged according to how we live truth in our lives. We will be judged according to what we believe and what we do with that belief. If you anchor yourself with the Bible you will stand firm against the wind and waves of our culture.

And if we don't start standing for something, we will wind up falling for everything.