Getting to the Truth (Part 1)

“What is truth?” Pilate asked Jesus at His trial. It’s so vital that we discover the truth of Scripture and hold to it. That seems to be a very obvious statement, but it’s so easy to allow a half-truth to slip into our understanding, and, when that happens, the weeds begin to spread - as happened with Solomon. He began well, and was the man chosen by his father, King David, to succeed him and to build the Temple, but he married foreign wives and allowed their gods and religions to cloud his understanding. Before long he’d diverged from the straight and narrow path and led his people astray.

I’ve recently been busy in my garden, trying to sort out some of the weeds which seem more prolific than ever this year, though maybe it’s just because of the late spring that I didn’t get round to them soon enough. Several of the plants had weeds growing through them, and the only way to deal with them was to dig the whole plant up and carefully take out the roots of the weeds strand by strand, before replanting the plant in a weed-free hole. The roots were so small and thin that it was hard to distinguish them, but, I knew if I allowed them to stay, they would gradually have overtaken the whole plant and choked it.

That is what happens to us when we begin to believe the lies that Satan loves to sow quietly into our ears. It may only be a small doubt to begin with, but gradually that doubt takes root and begins to take over. We may know the truth, but it’s slowly being choked by the lies. For example, we begin to doubt that God truly loves us. We know that is what it says in the Bible, but a doubt comes, perhaps because of the way we’ve been treated by our parents or someone close to us, and slowly that becomes the ‘truth’ that we believe.

I’ve recently been in contact with some men, all of whom had been abandoned by their fathers whilst they were young children, and all of whom had become drug addicts. There were, of course, other circumstances which had occurred in their lives to compound that initial rejection, but at the root of their pain was the fact that they felt worthless and rejected by the father who helped create them.

Thankfully they’ve been able to understand that, no matter what their earthly fathers thought of them, their heavenly Father has not abandoned them, and that He loves them unconditionally. That is a fundamental truth which we all need to take on board – it doesn’t just apply to the person sitting next to you: it applies to YOU!

Prayer: Father God, thank You that I can call you “Father, Abba, my Daddy God”. Thank You that You’ll never leave nor forsake me, and I can always rely on You to hold me through the difficulties and problems in my life. Please help me to hold on to that truth, no matter what. Amen.