Many say that Truth is a Person. It is so true. But how that Person becomes true to you and you true in Him, is more than a mind-boggling question. Often Truth does not come with its full blow in a single shot, even though sometimes it does strike us like a hammer. No, Truth comes more like a river ever flowing to us until we are cleansed and conformed to its very nature and become one with it.
The ability for us to receive the present truth of God becomes the touchstone of our hearts. Do we really rejoice with Truth? Well, let’s seriously review the way we respond to some “unhappy” truths: sadly, “with joy and without a fight” is a very rare sight. Only those who have been deeply dealt with by the Heavenly Father will possess a heart where we are glad to lose our own ground when the pressure of His sovereign rule comes to our soul, heart, and mind. Our love of God is well indicated by our love of truth.
Another distinction needs to be clearly made, and in light of man’s old nature and habits, even needs to be stressed: confession of truth is very far from conformity to truth. Jesus said this very clearly and with a sober warning. We need to practice truth and not merely become a teacher of it. These days, I guess as it has always been, few heed this warning. I have to confess that I am afraid that I endanger myself by the same fallacy more often than I would like to. God have mercy on me!
Truth is a Person. He lives and constantly engages. There is no place than for us to replace Him with a system of yes-and-nos, right-and-wrongs. It is very easy to hide behind the fortress of doctrinal convictions but refuses to receive, not to mention to be dealt with by, the Living Truth. Jesus spoke of such people as doing lip service to Him with their hearts far away from Him. God have mercy on all of us, that we are not found in such a crowd!
Gentleness and loving-kindness, meekness and goodness, patience and endurance; never hindered Jesus from speaking truthfully. “Verily, verily, I say unto you…” To Peter, it was sharp rebukes and down-to-earth straightforwardness; piercing insight about his flesh and assuring knowledge of his heart. “Stay in the light…” “Come unto me…” “Follow me…” seemingly, these kinds of calls would only be directed towards those who are not yet in the right place.
His is truthful love, untainted by man’s imagination, unblended with human sympathy, unadulterated by any earthly interest: this is free water for a thirsty soul, assured hope for a dying heart, faithful company for the outcast, comforting support for the downcast. It refuses the limelight, runs away from the eyes of man, does not care for man’s soulish cravings, and forfeits all titles of the cultures (kingdoms) of this world. “Do not love this world, any man who loves this world, the love of God is not in him.”
Don’t you feel strange when some claim that the Kingdom of God will make them vessels to “rule” this world?: that we will rule for God in communities, cities, and nations? If His Kingdom is not of this world, why should God set up His Holy Ones to rule this corrupt world, which is doomed to pass away without a trace? Isn’t His Dominion good enough for us presently and eternally in His Spirit? – not to mention, in the future when He will give us a new heaven and a new earth. Will not everything in this world be burned away but only that which is in Him remain? Why are messages such as: “separate yourself from this wicked and corrupted generation” so rarely heard in many of the messages preached today? I often wonder. I think this should make any man of God seriously wonder.
If we desire promotion in this world – do not deny it, repent and allow God’s Truth to enlighten our heart and release us from these entanglements. Seek His Kingdom and His Righteousness only and we will be received into His Riches, wonderful things we never knew.
The Spirit of God envisages greatly for us: it is impossible for one to entertain promotion of self and to receive Truth at the same time. Truth and with it, severe discipline, are our very promotion in the Kingdom of God. Let Truth from Heaven lift us back to Heaven where we came from. If God sends you down again, make sure you come down with His Truth – but this does not boldly and shamelessly label itself as receiving “promotion”, it is named “service”, “labor”, “laying down your life for others”, “feeding His sheep”, “imitating Christ”- who emptied Himself to be a servant of all, even to the death on a cross!
God have mercy on all of us!
Note by Immanuel:
I wrote this a few years back after reading certain writings which seemed to be encouraging believers with the notion that we can and should seek to, be “promoted” in the Kingdom of God or with spiritual matters, such as “promotion” being linked to the necessity of a certain kind of faith to achieve it. Some years ago, I was prophecized over in the same vein, with the words that “God would give me the promotion that no man would interfere with”. It was comforting and encouraging at a time when I entertained the false idea that I was somehow ‘put down’ by others. It was only a few years later that I began to perceive the selfishness and deceptiveness of my claim to ‘better treatment’ by the world, or as it turned out to be, by others. We can produce all kinds of strife within and without by claiming and clinging to the “rights” of our old self while rebelling against the dealings of God which come through others, which ultimately requires the denying of self. We even demand boldly that others respect and cherish our “rights”, or present them without careful scrutiny or examination of them with respect to the ways and desires of God. We call this “love”, “honor”, “respect”, “comfort”, “peace”, “help”, you name it – we have a word to justify our conduct. We create, embrace, uphold, even promote such a culture or cultures without ever raising a single strand of doubt about the validity and consequence thereof. Thus, we consistently promote ourselves with disguised forms of rights, aspirations, and reasons, or as Paul calls them, “desires and passions”. Thus, we consciously or unconsciously refuse to deal with “self-love”. One of the greatest of such cultures is the norm Christianity has today: a life that “has a form of godliness, but denies the power thereof.” How so? – because it endorses and promotes a lifestyle that feeds and indulges in the love of self, in the name of a “loving God”, by “Christians who “love one another” and “love sinners” without a real change within, according to God’s Nature and His ways. The masks are colorful, bullet-proof, and many; the reasons are biblical, moral, ideal, and most appealing to our senses. This bonfire has been on for ages.
Seeking and claiming freedom, respect, and honor for a self of earthly origin is, by nature, sin, and rebellion towards God. A man can even secure and promote spiritual endowments to satisfy and indulge his/her own undealt ego. Many good names have been related to endeavors like political freedom and rights and equality; if not strange but definitely sad, even roles, positions, and rights in the Body of Christ are included-all kinds of endowments or “betterment” for a man of the world or of an institution of man’s own making. Behind the curtain, is an unregenerate self-demanding its own ways and projecting its own “rights” over others, even God. The Bible calls this jealousy or false ambition.
Someone said, “self-love is of the devil.” What a truth! A very shocking Biblical term is used to denote this spiritual place: Babylon, which takes captive of God’s people for a time. Sadly, this is largely unchecked, if not rather encouraged, in most Christian circles. Spiritual ambition is still ambition; it will produce strife within and without. Sin is one thing, but denying sin is another. It is the kind of deception called witchcraft, as Samuel would put it, -the abuse of spiritual blessings or endowment.
Sin is lawlessness, which is against Christ. Our honor comes from God the Father Himself, not even from the Son; there will always be a false culture of honor among men as long as man is trying to make godliness something for personal gain, as did the religious people in Jesus’ time, as it is being done today.
