"He (the devil) was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies."-John 8:44
"The very essence of your words is truth;
all your just regulations will stand forever."-Psalm 119:160
"Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth." John 17:17
For a majority of my life I fell for a lie. I chased fleeting pleasure after fleeting pleasure and was left in ruin and misery. I have no idea why his grace called me out of darkness and into his marvelous light, but it did. My sin was the same as the worlds. I had "exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator." This lie is a very subtle one, it creeps into the hearts of followers by taking what are seemingly good desires and bringing them to despotic and destructive enslavement. Taking good things and making them "god" things...this exchange leaves us empty longing for more to satisfy longings or simply numb our existence. The mysteriously interesting thing of the gospel is that it is the essence and reality of all truth. Thus the lie that life will and can be found apart from it is just that; a lie. This deception will suffocate those who venture down its path, and what appeared to be pleasure filled, easy, fun, and enticing, turns out to be in truth a place of death, despair, depression, and enslaving.
But God is good, and he desires that all men and women would come to a saving knowledge of him. Of his goodness, his love, and his mercy. The thoughts of which cripple the inside of me, when I think on the benevolent mercy of the God who rescued me from myself. It is interesting that in losing yourself to something so magnificent you become the most "you" that you could possibly ever be. In other words in losing your life you find it, and in trying to preserve your "life" you lose it. The Human capacity for emotion is incredible. As image bearers of God we have within the fabric of our souls the incredible ability to "feel", and "feel" immensely. However, often the feelings we entertain are not explored for the truth behind them or the lie that is really beneath them. These emotional false prophets that come from the father of lies must be rebuked, destroyed, brought into the light and called for what they are; Lies.
God is good, he is grace, he is love, he is power, he is strength, he is immeasurably wonderful, irresistibly beautiful, overwhelming pleasure filled. He is truth. He is indescribable. He is the only hope we have, I don't have the words to give him the praise he is due, nor the power to release those captive to the lies that this world claims of him. Taste and see... the author of life longs to give it to you.
Call for truth, dig deeply into the realm of philosophical rhetoric, science, psychology, discover that there is more. Close your eyes and breath deeply feel the world around you. There is a truth that melts away all falsity. Love that breaks through all tragedy. Grace that wipes away all duplicitous self-indulgency. Mercy for all your iniquity...
Come to him, all you who search and thirst for more, you who are tired, and lonely, broken and have fallen into deceit. Find mercy from a God who is able to sympathize with you in your weakness and give you strength to find life.
C.S. Lewis speaks of the unseen longing that rings in the chaotic desperation of our souls:
"We...desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
-Let your mourning turn to dancing, and be consumed today with hope of what is to come.
this is so great... i was just thinking this morning about how skewed our vision can get, even at times when we feel we're walking closely with Christ. the world IS full of lies, and the smallest of them can put dark shaded glasses over our eyes. it's scary. but what i find so incredible is the fact that, no matter how many times i am blinded by the enemy, the father is ALWAYS faithful in reviving my sight... and it's such a bittersweet moment when he does! "at once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight" acts 9:18. we were once in darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. how stinkin sweet is that?
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