From the liar and deceiver
If you want to know the truth about God then you’ve got to stop lying and deceiving. This is because you can’t be really seeking truth if you are practicing lying and deceiving. Consider Jer 9.
Jer 9:3 "They bend their tongue like their bow; lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me," declares the LORD.
Jer 9:6 "Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me," declares the LORD.
Lies and deceit prevailed in the land. And guess what the impact was? People could not receive the knowledge of God.
Nowadays, people like to be politically correct. They like to pretend that they like you even though they don’t. What is that, if not deceitfulness? If you can’t be straightforward, you are going to have trouble recognizing the truth.
You see, if you are crooked, then even a straight line will look crooked to you. Worse still, God shows Himself crooked to those who are crooked.
Ps 18:25-26 25 With the kind You show Yourself kind; with the blameless You show Yourself blameless; 26 With the pure You show Yourself pure, and with the crooked You show Yourself astute.
God is like a mirror. If you are kind, you will see God as kind too. If you are blameless, you will see God as blameless too. If you are pure, you will see God as pure too. But if you are crooked, you will see God as crooked too (the Hebrew word translated as ‘astute’ is ‘pathal’ which means ‘twisted’ or ‘crooked’).
Now if you see God as crooked then you will find it difficult to take Him at His word. And if you cannot take Him at His word then you will go astray, because God cannot lie (Tit 1:2; Pr 8:8).
Jesus rarely praised people. He mostly rebuked people. So it is good to pay attention when He did praise someone. In that light, consider Jn 1:45-47.
Jn 1:45-47 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46 Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"
Jesus was thrilled to see someone who spoke truthfully. He is the same today, and He chooses such people to be among His disciples and learn the truth about Him.
Lies and truth are opposites. You can’t have both at the same time. When you know the truth it becomes easier for you to recognize truth that you don’t yet know. The apostle John put it like this in 1 Jn 2:21.
1 Jn 2:21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.
That is, John writes more truth to his audience because they already have some truth. One can build truth upon truth, but can’t build truth upon lies, and if lies are considered to be truth then there is no point in giving the person more truth – you first have to fix the foundation by removing the lies and replacing it by truth. Why? It is because if the foundation is based on lies then you will simply not believe the new truth.
So then, the next time your pastor gives a boring sermon, don’t go and tell him that he gave a wonderful sermon. And if your wife asks you how she looks in a particular outfit tell her the truth. Or keep quiet. But don’t tell her she looks wonderful if she doesn’t. Why block out the truth from your life just to get brownie points with your pastor and wife?
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