Dear friends, seek truth

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One of the most important desires to have when seeking to understand the word of God is the desire for truth. It is important to lay everything down before the throne of God as we come to scripture and humbly seek our loving, heavenly Father with the simple request, ‘please show me your truth Lord, show me what this portion of your word truly means.’

Our desire for truth comes from our desire for Jesus. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ He didn’t say He liked truth or that he sought truth but that He was truth. In order to be like Jesus as Christians, we must long to be true and to understand His truth with every atom of our beings.

Initially, as we journey the Christian life there are many, many things that seek to rob us of our desire for truth and gradually water it down so that the aching void within us can be filled with just about everything else, something at least, even if temporary and ultimately unsatisfying. The enemy is prowling around, the father of lies and therefore the hater of absolute truth and he will attempt to persuade us with ‘variations of the truth’ in order to crowd out ‘the truth that sets us free’. The reality that we need to cling to is that the aching voids within can only be satisfied with God’s life and truth.

We can easily become deceived into accepting something obtainable and of the world because it just seems too hard to hold out for something more which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming and which nobody else seems to be able to point us to as we slowly feel that we are fading into oblivion. We later discover that our hungry souls have not been satisfied with our own plan of action and the conflict between the pull of the world and the desire within us continues to drive us deeper into despair. Our souls are hungering and thirsting for truth and if we do not cry out to God for Him and Him alone to fill that, and to set us free, we spend our time increasingly collecting the junk of the world – second hand scrap which steers us in every possible direction except the way.

Our desire for truth must come before our desire for career, for status or for security. It must come before what we perceive to be something that will bring us the fulfilment we are seeking or craving or to be a goal that we feel will fill that deep gnawing need within us. It must come before all that we have read by other theologians no matter how respected and esteemed they are. It must come before our safety net which we spread out to protect us from pain and it must come before all that the world seeks to influence us with or dictate to us how we should be. It must come before the feminist voice that cries out for ‘equality’ or for the latest ‘worthy cause’ that we know we could fight for. It comes before the friend who tells us to ‘follow our dreams’ or to believe that the ‘world is our oyster’. It must come before the desire to be married and to have those longed for children and it comes before the desire to ‘take matters into our own hands’. It must also come before all the pressures of family relationships or the demands from work colleagues that we conform to their patterns of living or risk being rejected.

It comes before we conform to the patterns of this world.

All of these things might tug at our coat sleeves to arrest our attention and win us to their side but if there is any doubt in our minds or hearts – even if just a small wisp of it – then we must bow our knees before God and ask Him for the full truth and wait until we have received it.

I would like to suggest that the reason why people no longer perceive 1 Timothy 2 v 11-14,

“Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”

to be relevant, or to be taken at face value, is that all the things listed above have come before the desire for the full truth. Sadly, I know it did with me until I eventually became willing to push every excuse and argument aside and to come before the maker of heaven and earth with the humble request that He reveal the truth of His precious and powerful word. It was then that I changed my mind or rather, allowed it to be shifted into His realm of truth.

2 thoughts on “Dear friends, seek truth

  1. A good site but a difficult subject for people to receive instruction on. As the spirit of the age puts ‘self’ first. May much blessing be poured out on those who seek the Truth of God’s Word with a yearning to understand.

    Much love In Jesus

    David

  2. Thanks, David. God’s holy word is sharper than a double-edged sword, and it penetrates to the dividing of soul and spirit, bone and marrow. It serves to put to death soulish things that are contrary to the thing of the spirit. His word regarding women in the church of Jesus Christ is no exception.

    Andrew

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