Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” Luke 8:24b–25a
Truth is a Person, not a concept. Jesus said He was the Truth (John 14:6). That means that you can never know the truth of your circumstances unless you have first heard from Jesus. The disciples thought they were perishing in the storm. They were fishermen who knew the sea and knew what their condition was. They had allowed their circumstances to convince them that the “truth” was their imminent death. But they were wrong. Truth was asleep in the back of their boat! Since some of the disciples were fishermen, they trusted in their own expertise and wisdom rather than recognizing that only Jesus knew the truth of their situation. At times, our human knowledge in certain areas of life can blind us to our desperate need to hear a word from Truth. When Jesus spoke, the disciples saw the real truth of their situation. There was absolute calm. The disciples had seen Jesus perform other miracles, but they had not yet witnessed His power over nature in such a dimension. Often we are like the disciples. God may have recently demonstrated His power to us in a mighty way; we may have experienced many spiritual victories in the past. Yet, when a new and frightening situation comes upon us we, too, panic and say, “Lord save me. I’m perishing!” God will remind us of His provision, saying, “I can handle this situation, too, and you will know more of Me because of it.” Have you become fearful instead of faithful? If you have, prepare for the rebuke, for it will come.- Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day
We all, in our daily lives, seek some form of understanding. A child to the elderly one and all. You are right now. Seeking to understand what is before you, to understand what you are reading here.
My most emotionally challenged times in my life are and have been when working through the process of understanding life.
I can be a very passionate person. Like most everyone it all depends on what the subject is.
Truth means a lot of things to different people. Jesus says that He is the Truth.
That, my Friend, my Dear Reader, is THE unchangeable Truth.
To be honest, as always, I had never considered that story that Blackaby draws from in today's devotional in quite that way before.
We all want our idea of truth to prevail.
My idea of truth is not what yours probably is. Your idea isn't what the next person you come across in life is.
I have grown up in life having attended Grace Brethren Churches mostly. Have attended American Baptist Churches, Southern Baptist Churches etc. But how would I reconcile those various beliefs with what I believe? Goes back to truth.
I was born a sinner, just like every one of you.
I attended a Grace Brethren Church. I heard the good news and came to Christ. That didn't make me a Grace Brethren Christian. It made me a new life in Christ, a Christian. I became a member of the household of God. In the Spiritual world there is no denominations. That's the universal truth of the New Testament. In this truth there is no set version of the Bible. We are not going to get to Heaven to find that one version of what was called God's Word on Earth was set above the others. King James isn't better than the New International version or the New King James or even the New American Standard. The truth of God in Heaven is as this devotional reads...the truth of God in Heaven is Jesus, a person.
Down here, we try to define truth. We define it the moment our eyes open after we are born. We try all our lives to define it. We equate happiness with our truth equaling what we believe to be right, good, pure and true. But does that equal what Jesus says? That's the harder part for all of us.
When you die you face the truth.
You face the truth about your choices in life to either believe, trust, rely on Jesus Christ to have saved you, or you did not and face those consequences.
You face the truth of who you are as a person. No longer hiding behind personas or facades. You will be entirely exposed before whom you have to do, meaning Jesus Christ.
Your version of truth will be weighed against the absolute truth, which is Jesus.
In this life your choices and decisions should be weighed now against that truth.
The Pharisees and Sadducees, Scribes, Lawyers, all the people Jesus saw, healed, spoke with while He was here on Earth faced Truth. Nothing was hidden from Jesus. Nothing at all. The truth about the sinfulness of mankind exposed in His final week before His crucifixion was seeing mankind rejoice at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, to end a week later by the same people calling for Him to die.
The Disciples were often told of their eyes being closed, that the will of God the Father was that they would believe, understand, the truth of Jesus's words.
We who come to Christ need the Spirit of God to show us the ugliness of the truth about ourselves. So that we, Him leading, can deal with it. It's going to be painful. We aren't in for an easy ride after coming to Christ. We are certainly loved by our Savior, loved too much to leave us the way we were when we came to Christ. We face Truth when we come to Christ. We face challenges and changes to our lives. Some, quite frankly, that appear to be unbelievable.
Look at your life. You who claim to believe in Jesus Christ, is change happening in your life or are you really no different than when you first believed? That is a sign unto you as to whether or not you are saved. Whether salvation has become part of you. Jesus begins a new work in you to make you more like Christ. If your life hasn't changed, go back to the cross.
Today is a day to awaken from your sleep.
It's the day for you to embrace the world through the eyes of truth revealed through Jesus Christ.
Truth can and will be painful. But in the end what we lose, doesn't compare with what we gain.
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