The Baby in the Manger #6: Truth

Truth (grk: alētheia)

‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’  (John 8:31-32)

‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' (John 14:6)

Our world is full of lies. Full-lies, half-lies, big lies, little lies.  Sometimes those lies can make us feel better - like the lie that our money and possessions will give us all that we need, or the lie that we're doing ok in our own strength - that we have enough within ourselves to do all we need to do.  Those lies might appear true for a while, but then when troubles come those flimsy foundations can be swept away in a moment and we are left with nothing.

Other lies trap us: like the lie that God is not there to protect us; or the lie that we need to keep carrying around our sin and burdens, and to keep punishing ourselves or somehow doing more in order to make up for our inadequacies.  Such lies make us slaves to fear, or slaves to religion.

We read the Jesus Storybook Bible with our children by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  In this children's adaptation of the Bible, the chapter based on Genesis 3, which charts the fall of humankind and origins of the breakdown in their relationship with God, is entitled The Terrible Lie.  It's a great title for this chapter, because that is what is at the heart of the fall - a lie.  It is a lie that says this: God doesn't want you to be happy.  Happiness and fulfilment is found in making your own rules, living in your own strength, and not living in relationship and trust with him, as your heavenly father.  You don't need him.

But Jesus says that if we hold to his teaching, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.

That truth is this: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16-17)

In other words:

1) God does love us and longs for relationship with us

2) If we trust in Jesus he will deal with our brokenness - we are no longer 'condemned'.  That means no longer guilty, no longer ineffectual, no longer broken, no longer dying.  We can live as free people.

3) If we trust in Jesus, we are promised eternal life.  That means that even though the bodies we have in this life will die, we will be raised with him with new bodies.  It means that even though we still live in this temporary world, we have belonging and peace right now, already.

But Jesus does not only speak the truth, he is the truth.  Because all this truth is fulfilled in him.